Tari's Patch

I am a frequent visitor to the Gulf and have been so for almost ten years so it's been a delight, in the past few weeks, to have visited two new (for me) places which immediately made me feel at home because they take culture on the one hand and the empowerment of female leaders on the other, seriously. All of which feeds my fascination with the way nations, and cities, work at their vision and position in the world - about which I have blogged often. Sharjah is only 20 minutes down the road from Dubai and to my shame, a place I hadn't visited until earlier this year. This is an Emirate with a passion for culture, a Ruler who actively encourages the arts, and a Ruler's wife who doesn't just carry out charitable work (after all, which Ruler's wife in the world doesn't do charitable work...) but actually gets down and dirty in doing so and speaks with knowledgeable passion about her work - whether in Jordan for the Syrian refugees or at home with children wi