Category Archives: Dubai

A Liebster award!

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Thank you to Sand In My Toes for honouring my blog with a Liebster award! I’m cheating rather by only answering the questions, but as I’ve been home alone this weekend with a sick child, I’m hoping this won’t disqualify me. So, without much further ado:

liebster-awardWhat was the most spiritual moment of your life?
My second cesarean, losing two litres of blood (a coca cola family bottle!), literally seeing stars, the student nurse nearly fainting and the room suddenly filling with medical staff in an ER-style scene.

What remains your most outrageous buy?
A nicer car than we’d ever be able to afford back home.

What do you do when the kids are napping?
They never nap.

What would your dream vacation be?
Space travel.

What film makes you cry the most?
Titanic – even though we’ve watched it at least 10 times recently due to my sons having an obsession with maritime disasters.

How do you handle the stress that comes with being a parent?
For me, writing is a sanity saver.

What moment do you most look forward to with your child, every day?
Does anyone admit to the moment they fall asleep? When you smell their peachy heads and they suddenly look so adorable and peaceful. But there are also many other moments that balance out the craziness of our days – the best one being when they say, “It’s a good job I’ve got this mum.”

How do you indulge in some ‘me’ time?
I love re-designing the house, reading, going to work with DH, and, very rarely, painting.

Do you like to cook? What’s your signature dish?
I’m an amateur cook, but getting better. Shepherd’s pie is my signature dish.

What is your happiest childhood memory?
Holidays in North Wales, at Pencaenewydd Farm.

Is there something you secretly wish for every day?
That a giant Tesco would open in Arabian Ranches. With online grocery shopping.

How old do I look?

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DH got back from New York the other day with a story about a homeless guy who’d tried to get some money from him by guessing his age.

I won’t say what age he thought DH was, but it was six years older than he actually is.

xxxxxx

Just the beginning of a pilot’s mid-life crisis

“Well that’s ridiculous,” I replied, because it was – and because the last thing I want is for DH to have a mid-life crisis. He already flies the most enormous jet airplane in the world; goodness knows where a mid-life crisis would lead.

At bedtime, I asked BB how old he thought I was.

“Erm,” said BB thoughtfully, giving it some serious consideration while brushing his teeth.

“Twenty-nine?”

“Really?” I practically yelped, my voice a little too high-pitched.

I came clean. BB has no idea about age, after all.

“Well, I’m not. I’m forty sweetheart.”

“FOR-TY?” responded BB, his brown eyes widening into saucers.

“You mean a four AND a zero? … Oh Mummy!”

Almost incomprehensible when you’re the tender age of seven!

The interview fail

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It was my first interview in years and I was running late – not seriously late, but time had marched forwards, leaving me with about 30 minutes to get dressed, shovel on some make-up and find my portfolio at the back of the cupboard.

I may have put a little more mascara on than usual, because my pink-rimmed eyes looked like I’d been up all night (which is not surprising, because I had). I’d landed back in Dubai at 6am that morning, slept a little and was heading down to Media City for an interview on a fashion magazine.

It had to be that afternoon; it was the only time they could do. And, while a part of me yelled, ‘You’re a mum now. What do you think you’re doing? You left the high-profile stuff behind years ago,” I was excited – the thought of working once again on a beautiful glossy magazine setting my brain alight with possibilities.

As I waited nervously in the foyer, I marvelled at the rows of magazines on display, the glamorous receptionist, the fake-smile PR girl flicking her blonde hair and the overall swishness of the place.

The editor appeared, looking trim and trendy in a metallic skirt, and led me to the canteen. Decked out in white, my eyes were drawn to the green, grass-like herbs on the formica counters, the ping-pong table and the view outside.

You could even get a massage upstairs (I’m not kidding). It beat my kitchen, where I boil the kettle and battle endlessly to feed my children, hands down.

I must have ended up in the right-hand tray

She put me in the right-hand tray!

We seemed to get along; she was nice, interested (and at least didn’t take one look at my hurriedly thrown together outfit and rather dated boots and step back into the elevator).

But there were some stumbling blocks.

“We sometimes have to work at the weekend,” she told me, eyeing me squarely. “I realise you have children, but I need to know you wouldn’t let us down.”

“Umm, that should be okay,” I faltered, “although if my husband and nanny are gone, I’m really stuck,” I blurted.

“I’ll be in touch later,” she said at the end. And sure enough she was – with a writing test she wanted by the next day.

I did the test and sent it at 1.30am, ploughing through severe fatigue, but jet lag at least working in my favour (the position, covering a two-month absence, was to start on Monday, hence the urgency).

And you know what? They haven’t even been in touch. I don’t need to tell you that it’s Tuesday today, and that the deafening silence obviously means I was rejected.

But it would have been nice to have been told [she says, in a depressed little voice].

My DH tells me not to worry, that something else – more family friendly – will come along if a proper, more regular job is what I want, and can’t fully understand why I’m so upset. “I’m a mummy, not an Airbus,” I tell him. “There’s no quick-fix for a mummy who’s conflicted about her career being in tatters.”

And then my mum’s words (of reason) come into my head. “These things, they tend to work out for the best, you know,” she says.

She’s right, isn’t she?

EDITED TO ADD: I finally heard from them – still a big fat ‘no’, but feel so much better to know the reason!

Silent Sunday: Gone fishing

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Brothers are the best, especially when it comes to activities like fishing. My DH’s brother lives in Dubai, too, and when we all get together, I love stepping back and watching them all ‘be boys’ together.

This was taken at a place we’ve named Cat Beach, because there’s a colony of cats living – quite happily – on the rocks, feeding on the fish thrown to them by visiting fishermen. Someone fell in two minutes after I took this - not who you think!

This was taken at a place we’ve named Cat Beach, because there’s a colony of cats living – quite happily – on the rocks, feeding on the fish thrown to them by visiting fishermen. Someone fell in two minutes after I took this – not who you think!

A 7-year-old’s day

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“Mummy, I’m SO excited! So excited to tell you!”

BB burst through the front door, dropping his schoolbag and lunchbox on the floor in a heap.

I could hardly wait.

Long-time readers will know from a previous post that I’m a mummy who lives in hope of her children telling her something about what they’ve done at school that day (“I don’t want to talk about it” is the usual response).

“What is it BB? What happened?” I replied, ears agog as I picked up his discarded socks.

“I’ve got to the next level on my DS machine!”

There's BB at the back of the bus, on his Nintendo DS

There’s BB at the back of the bus, on his Nintendo DS

Doing battle at dinner (again)

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Despite having not lived in the UK for just under 10 years, I’m still pretty English.

DH (who’s American) would agree: You can take the girl out of England, but not the English out of the girl, we say.

Mostly our different backgrounds complement each other, but if there’s one thing that DH does that annoys me, it’s when he CORRECTS me in everyday conversation.

For example, I’ll ask him (politely) if he can take something out of the boot, and he’ll shrug his shoulders and pretend he doesn’t know what the boot is. “The trunk, you mean?” he’ll say, in a soft mid-Atlantic accent.

And I refuse to back down. The way I speak, my British spellings and British tastes are so deeply ingrained, it’s like I’m holding onto them for dear life – and living in an expat society such as ours, I’m sure they define me.

This theory also applies, to some extent, to food. We’re lucky enough in Dubai to have access to all kinds of restaurants, from Lebanese to Vietnamese, sushi to Indian. While I enjoy most of these cuisines very much, occasionally all I really want is a shepherd’s pie, or fish and chips.

If only they'd open one in our compound

If only they’d open one in our compound

Or bangers ‘n’ mash, or a greasy spoon …. a proper sausage roll. I could go on.

What has become glaringly obvious, however, is that my expat children are having none of it. To my dismay, they reject nearly all my favourite English foods.

Case study: Chez Circles, yesterday evening
I’m in the kitchen, making an old staple: beef stroganoff with mashed potato and broccoli. It’s bubbling away nicely, smells delicious and I’m just waiting for the potatoes to cook so I can add butter and milk and pummel them to fluff with the masher.

BB comes in. “Mummy, are you cooking?” [clue no.1 as to what’s going on]. “What are you making?”

Then, “OH.NO. Not pie. Oh please Mummy, not pie.”

I made shepherd’s pie last week and the two of them sat at the table for a whole hour while DH and I practically force-fed them in a culinary stand-off.

BB’s eyes actually start shining with fright. “No darling, it’s not pie,” I say glumly.

We sit down to eat, I tuck in. DH politely does the same. I have a hopeful look on my face that this meal will be a success.

“WE.DON’T.LIKE.IT,” they wail, wiping the smile off my face in an instant and leaving me grinding my molars in frustration.

“Maybe you should have done rice,” says DH, quietly (clue no. 2).

Through clenched teeth, I tell them I used to eat potatoes every day when I was a girl, that mashed potatoes are yummy and that they’re being ungrateful. And then I try shock tactics and tell them (for the hundredth time) about the starving children in Africa.

BB eats slowly and silently. LB fidgets on his chair.

I go back into the kitchen to pour more wine, pondering to myself how my children could possibly dislike food I grew up on (the answer, of course, is that their taste buds lean towards Asia rather than England, because our Filipina helper cooks rice for them more often than I care to admit).

And that’s when I heard the yelling: “Mumm-eeeee, QUICK. EMERGENCY!” shouts BB.

His brother has reluctantly taken a few bites…and vomited. Everywhere. Bringing the meal to an unceremonious end.

[Thinks: it might be time to reclaim the kitchen – and use ear plugs at the dinner table.]

You’ve been warned – NO ice cream!

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I must stop blogging about the weather. I know.

Especially as the UK (where I’m hoping to travel to on Friday!) has been brought to a standstill this week with the arrival of an icy but pretty snowmageddon.

My Facebook page is populated by snowmen with carrot noses and stony eyes, and BBC online has kept us updated with ‘As it happened’ reports on the disruption and chaos – so, I’m well aware that here in the UAE we’re getting off, er, very lightly.

But we’re actually experiencing something of a ‘cold snap’ ourselves.

Really. We are. The mercury has dropped to morning lows of 9 to 10°C, and with hard, marble floors, flimsy summer duvets and no heating, it actually feels really chilly.

Pounding the school run in Dubai this week (boot envy, moi?)

Pounding the school run this week (boot envy, moi?)

This happens every year at about this time (see, as proof, last year’s blog post on the desert freezing over), but we tend to forget about it as it doesn’t last very long – say, a couple of weeks – and when it leaps back to 40°C the cooler temps are hard to imagine.

The best thing is being able to wear different clothes – with a sleeve, even Ugg boots and a scarf if you can find these items in the depths of your closet. My mind starts tripping with wardrobe opportunities – until I remember all my winter clothes are from 2005.

I love this weather, I really do; it’s such a breath of fresh air, but the funny thing is how seriously folks in Dubai with outdoor jobs take it – donning several layers, bobble hats, big, thick coats and sometimes ear muffs (no kidding!) like they’re Arctic explorers.

My top prize, though, goes to gulfnews.com for this hilarious news piece, written by the bureau chief in all seriousness and entitled ‘People shiver in the bitterly cold nights’.

After reporting that the temperature had dropped to a biting 2°C in inland desert areas, the article warns people to wear warm clothes, not to stay in desert camps or open places overnight, and – it gets better – to have hot drinks and avoid ice cream as a precaution against colds and flu.

As a former resident of Minneapolis in the Midwest of America, where we survived temperatures that, with the wind chill, dipped to minus 42°C – and where you could get frostbite on your ear lobes in five minutes – I wore my gym shorts on the school run this morning without fear.

xxxxx

Snow, snow, go away – by Friday. I am (fingers crossed) London bound!

Silent Sunday: Move over Barbie

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They’re the cheerleaders of the Middle East; the immaculately groomed keepers of the meal trays; the friendly, smiling faces on board a planeful of strangers. Now say hello to the Emirates flight attendant doll…

I don’t have a DD, and I’m certainly not getting one of these for DH, but I thought readers with girls might be interested to see this 'iconic' doll. How about a 'Ken' pilot version next?

I don’t have a DD, and I’m certainly not getting one of these for DH, but I thought readers with girls might be interested to see this ‘iconic’ doll. How about a ‘Ken’ pilot version next?

This isn’t a sponsored post, but if you have a budding flight attendant at home, you can buy the doll here

Wake up and Shake up!

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I am not a morning person. Never have been; never will be. I’m much better at staying up late than I am at getting up with the lark, and have seriously considered having a teasmade installed by the bed to smooth the opening-of-the-eyes process.

All my life, I’ve somehow managed to avoid really early starts. I worked in media (9.30am start in London); freelanced for many years; and studied history at university (earliest lecture 11am, and believe me, even that felt early). I like my sleep, need my sleep and don’t function very well without it.

Cue: children.

I’ve pretty much blanked out the early, mind-bending horrors of baby-induced sleep deprivation, and to be fair to BB and LB, they stay in their beds most nights these days, but my problem is this: schools in Dubai start rudely early.

BB leaves on a school bus at 7.15am, and the doors slide shut on LB’s classroom at 7.50am. Seriously, just typing these times makes me yawn, and if I’m driving on to work, I get there half-an-hour before nearly everyone else.

The moves

The moves

This morning – still feeling like we were getting up for a red-eye flight despite it being the second week of term – it was the usual palava hustling LB out of the house. He climbs into the car like he’s got all. the. time. in the world and climbs out like he’s dismounting a horse.

Being Dubai (where useful things like school car parks aren’t always given due consideration), I have to drag him a fair distance, past the onion-shaped dome of a mosque, over a football pitch, up some stairs, and across the ‘big kid’ part of the school. That gives him opportunities aplenty to attempt to climb walls, meander, stop and smell the flowers, or sit down.

Herding kittens would be easier.

We made it, and I was just about to slope off to get a shot of caffeine when I realised: the parents were congregating on the tennis courts for ‘Wake up and Shake up’ – organised fitness to music at 8 in the morning, with the children. (Think: mums jumping around in Lycra and a generous smattering of dads standing rooted to the spot with their arms firmly crossed and both eyes on the smoking hot PE teacher.)

If I wasn’t fully awake before, I was after throwing a few shapes to Gangnam Style on a surprisingly Arctic-like* Dubai morning.

* That may be an exaggeration. But it honestly was one of the crispest mornings I’ve known in the UAE

Another side of Dubai

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[SUBTITLE: On feeling very thankful]

It never ceases to amaze me what can be accomplished practically overnight in Dubai.

Behind the dizzying construction work that goes on in the emirate there’s an army of immigrant labourers, who built the city’s skyscrapers, the mega malls, the highways, the Metro and the schools.

They’re transported by bus into the city each day from the camps in which they live. Their accommodation facilities are basic, conditions crowded. In one camp I saw photos of, the residents were eating on a floor lined with newspapers advertising the luxury watches, five-star hotels and high-end residential developments of Dubai.

The labourers pay employment agencies to get here – to escape the poverty of their home countries (places such as India, Bangladesh and Pakistan) and instead toil for low pay in the extreme heat of one of the world’s richest economies. All, or nearly all, of the money they earn – which can be as little as £150 a month – is sent back to their families.

Migrants comprise some 90 percent of the 1.7 million workers in the UAE

Migrants comprise some 90 percent of the 1.7 million workers in the UAE

The modern-day monoliths these labourers have created are truly staggering: the Palm Jumeriah, reclaimed from the sea; the tapering, glass Burj Khalifa – the construction of which involved pumping concrete nearly one kilometre into the sky; the Dubai Mall with its world’s largest aquarium (and more in the pipeline).

These obviously weren’t built overnight, but Dubai does tend to change very quickly. Over the past few months, we’ve watched a major fly-over that’s brought us 10 minutes closer to town be completed at breakneck speed. Yesterday, we drove past a small battalion of workers beavering away on the new Al Sufouh tram. While projects are frequently delayed, once they’re prioritised, they continue apace.

Landscapers working in our compound, in their regulation uniform

Landscapers working in our compound, in their regulation uniforms


On a less-grandiose scale, our compound is staffed by immigrant workers who keep everything ticking over, tending to the landscaping, the communal areas, and maintenance issues. This week, we woke up to see that some 100 flags had appeared around our community’s perimeter. I could imagine the conversation: “We need more visibility,” a BMW-driving manager must have declared. “Bring flags.” And so off scurried the staff, to put up more flags than you’d see at the Queen’s Trooping the Colour.

I’m not sure what the terms and conditions are like for the employees in our compound, but the city’s construction workers arrive in Dubai to find their employer has almost total control over their pay, living quarters, diet, capacity to change jobs and their ability to return home.

To their families.

Several of my most moving interactions in Dubai have been with migrant workers who have children, back home, the same age as mine. I once got talking to a man who I noticed was watching me with my sons.

You might think this sounds creepy, but I guessed why he was staring and smiled. “How old?” he enquired. “Four and one,” I replied, “And yours?” I asked, intuitively. “A boy, four, same like yours,” he told me with a wistful expression. “And a baby girl I haven’t met yet.”

Short of paying for him to travel home to see his family, asking to see photos – which he duly pulled out of his wallet with pride – and giving him a phone card was the least I could do.