Jumeirah

He was deeply passionate about his horses.

He loved horse racing and he was captivated by the sport as a young boy when he used to ride on the beaches in Jumeirah with his brothers.

and he always showed tremendous interest but the one thing that he really was was he was the most incredibly patient man and he would always put the horse first and even if that mean meant sort of missing out on big targets or whatever he was always insisting that the horse had to come first and um You know, he developed horses through their careers by carrying out that mantra.

And he was just a very, very nice person to be around and to work for.

A couple of last texts that we've got in.

Nadine, I live in Jumeirah.

I saw a few cars being tested in there.

I don't mind getting into one around the area.

Yeah, it makes a huge difference.

Because Jumeirah, Marina, city centre, the Palm.

Yeah,

downtown.

It's not a 20-minute drive.

It is an hour at least.

Even from Jumeirah Beach to the city centre, it's a 40-minute taxi drive.

Yeah.

Wow.

You know, like that level of beautiful where I really had FOMO that I didn't get up early enough to step outside, check, and then just go for a walk in Jumeirah.

It would have been beautiful.

So if you do have the fortune of not having to be at work just yet...

Everything was really good.

And then we planned, we thought, how can we do this ourselves? Can we open up our own facility? So literally the same year that Rio was born, we opened up UConcept, which is a personal training center in the village mall in Jumeirah.

So went back to the UK, recruited a load of trainers, brought them over, and we

opened.

My wife's in the bedroom.

She comes out and we're just like, we've got this blue kid that's just floppy.

So we rushed downstairs and we're downstairs and we're thinking, what do we do? So we know on the compound where we're living in Jumeirah, there was a nurse.

So Delphine goes and rush.

And just every time I'm learning these practices to keep adopting them into my brand.

Tanya's has grown from its original Jumeirah Tea House to a larger kind of day-to-night venue in Dubai Hills.

Alongside that more intimate serenity in Almanara, its offering goes beyond that tea into dining, into functional ingredients, private events, wellness experiences as well.

But it's interesting to reflect on expansion can be such an exciting milestone for a business owner.

I think getting people together, inspiring people, being able to celebrate special occasions, being able to challenge people with new thoughts, ideas, being able to create safe spaces for people to network or people to have difficult conversations, like Soviet, whatever it is with events, like there's so much room for human connection, creativity, kindness, and it really does excite me to work on events.

Can I be really boring and practical? The Dubai Hills location is absolute fail safe for getting people from all over the city.

Because I'm in a book club and we've got people in Mudon, in Ranches, in Jumeirah, in City Walk, in Dubai South.

And we're always like Dubai Hills.