Coincidence?

After our first year in Dubai we upped and moved. We liked our location but we were not so keen on our unwelcomed house guests....cockroaches. Plus the fact that the building was old and needed a lot of work.
We decided to move more into the desert. We drove around all day with a family friend and he introduced us to a lot of people and places. One thing struck me however was that it was quite isolated.
Even though the house prices were less there was nowhere to go if you needed a pint of milk or ran out of something. I liked the idea of being close to somewhere that could help us if we needed anything.
Then we tried a compound. We drove past a security gate explaining we were looking for somewhere to live. The security saw no threat and let us drive around it. There were around 80 villas in it and it had a pool, saunas, gym, shop and cafe. It was perfect. Yet there were no vacancies.
As we got to the bottom of the street to turn around NH, a family friend, spoke with someone outside of their house. She answered with a Welsh dialect.
As she spoke she was surprised to learn that this was where my husband was from. They spoke excitedly.
She invited us in and told us that she thought there was a vacancy coming up. We left a business card and she said she would phone if there was any news.
As we left I said to AWW that this place was ideal and offered us everything we needed. I wanted to be here more than anywhere else. Though it was a popular site for everyone, there was a waiting list.

A week later we had a call and a property came up. Even though there was a waiting list it seemed the owner of the compound was eager to have British ex-patriots in the community. We were offered the end house. It had a bigger garden than most and was close to everything. The garden was set up perfectly too. We took it and moved in as soon as possible.

We soon became familiar with the local community and the residents in it. The children had a park available to them and a pool where they could socialise too.

We stayed in this compound for the next five years.