Madame's "holiday": Part 1

Madame with her American friend

You may have noticed that I've often mentioned "Madame" in past posts. When people here talk about a Dubai Madame they mean a woman usually an expat, living the worry-free shopping/poolside/manicures life of luxury here (that's definitely not me then!) But no, this "Madame" is our car; a 505 bhp bi-turbo V8 Audi RS6, a muscle car supreme. I have her all week to go to and from work and Colin says he gets to drive her at the weekend "If he's a good boy." The car was named by Soirse as we ripped along the Hatta Road down to Oman on a visa run: "This is such a Madame car" she said, and the name has stuck. We're both so impressed with the Audi, she handles beautifully on the open road at speed, but is also very "well mannered" in suburban traffic (which is lucky when, like last night, it took me over an hour to travel the 5kms from BurJuman to the Trade Centre).

Anyway, it turns out that Madame was pinged in March doing 183kph in a 120kph zone (for heavens sake it was on a highway in the middle of the desert near Bab al Shams, we're talking "back of beyond" territory here...) As a result not only is there a fine but the car is being impounded for a week. We have to take her to the main police station in Dubai where she'll be locked up in their parking lot for a week.....eeuww.....it'll be full of Kia micro-cars and evil Nissan Sunnys with overdue parking fines.....poor, poor Madame! Our friend Allen's LandRover Discovery has also been impounded for a week so maybe the Disco and Madame can sit next to each other and glare at the other cars.

And before any smartypants(s) say anything, it wasn't me!