Category Archives: Expat

Lost and confused

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Moving house in any country comes with challenges, but after two international relocations, I thought a move within Dubai to Meydan South couldn’t be too hard.

Not so.

I’ve spent the past two weeks feeling quite lost, and that’s just in the house.

Not only can I not find anything, but we’ve switched rooms around and it took me about a week to get used to the new layout. I’d walk into a room, stand rooted to the spot for a few seconds, realise what I was seeing didn’t make sense, then back out to reposition myself on the landing.

Meydan South

Cookie cutter: I need a sat-nav in the compound

Then, I step outside the villa, and feel as though I’m in a maze. The houses are identikit copies of each other, and the streets very similar – do I turn left or right out of our house to get to the roundabout that leads to the road that takes you to the exit? The compound is like a rabbit warren and I swear you could get lost in here forever.

I’ve struggled! I’m a creature of habit, especially on the roads, and so it was with some trepidation that I set off in the car to the supermarket for the first time. My pulse a little faster than usual, I made it there ok; I marvelled at the American-style, ample parking spaces; my eyes grew wide as I walked the aisles (it’s like a Super Spinneys!), then I got hopelessly, utterly lost on the way home.

There were no signs! I can just imagine the Roads & Transport Authority’s meeting. “Should we put a sign for the highway up? Tell drivers how to get onto the main artery from Silicon Oasis to Dubai?”

A cracking great laugh. “What would we want to do that for?”

But the great benefit of moving is the decluttering opportunity it presents. I’ve had Take My Junk out twice; we have a store room you can walk into; and the house actually feels lighter and less weighed down by seven years’ worth of kid paraphernalia. That, in itself, has made it all worthwhile.

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00064]If you enjoy my blog, please consider buying my short e-book: Cupcakes & Heels – I don’t know how she does it abroad. Download it for 99p here. THANK YOU!

Moving to Meydan: The new house rollercoaster

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“So what do you think?” I asked, gazing at the lounge walls in our empty new villa. The smell of fresh paint tickled my nostrils as I waited for DH’s response.

I’d gone for three different colours (green, charcoal and beige; it’s a large room!) – a sort of tricolour effect, and he was either going to love it or hate it.

“Very nice.” DH’s eyes flickered from wall to wall. “Three colours … I see.”

So I gave him the spiel I always give him in these situations, which I’d learnt from my mother-in-law: “If you have a creative wife, you just have to say THANK GOD and let her get on with it!” I smiled and hustled him upstairs to see his office, where we’d settled on just two ‘manly’ colours.

Not an accurate depiction of the blogger (I paid a nice man to paint)

Not an accurate depiction of the blogger (I paid a nice man to paint)

I walked back into the spacious living room with its views of the park area outside, and felt far more positive about moving than I did when we got the eviction email four months ago. Something about the blank canvas around me made me feel calmer and more in control of my life than I’d felt in weeks. Left alone in our quiet, cloud-like space, I soaked up the peacefulness.

We moved in over the next two hot and sweaty days. Once all the bulky items had bumped their way into position, a procession of smaller boxes marched in, until finally the packers left and we closed the door. As the last truck rolled away, I stood in the living room and surveyed the now cluttered space. I’d started feeling a little deflated. The dusty scent of cardboard had replaced the smell of fresh paint. There were piles of boxes stacked against the walls, and instead of straight, linear lines and open space, there was mess and bubble wrap strewn around (the boys wanted to keep it to pop).

The day was fading to dusk and I flicked the light switches by the door. So many light switches. It would take days to learn what they all did. I padded around – my flip-flops slapping against the floor – and did some more unpacking, sorting, moving things around, trying to bring some order to the chaos.

The next day I loved the house again, then the day after I fell out with it again. A strange smell was emanating from the bathrooms, and aware of stories from fellow residents about pipes not being connected, things falling off walls, water leaks and even electrical fires, I made our first call (of many) to maintenance.

Let’s just say I’ve got to know maintenance pretty well since then. Fair’s fair, they’re fixing things fast, although the blank stare you get when you’re trying to make yourself understood – followed by the nod which confirms you’re talking at cross purposes – just kills me!

Once our taps, which are currently like mini dancing Dubai fountains with varying water pressures, surges and stoppages, are fixed, I think we’re nearly there …

My verdict: I love the house!

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00064]If you enjoy my blog, please consider buying my short e-book: Cupcakes & Heels – I don’t know how she does it abroad. Download it for 99p here. THANK YOU!

Gardener Scissorhands: Part II

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If you’ve been following my blog, you might remember the day our gardeners, using only very rudimentary tools, managed to bludgeon a water pipe while toppling our Damas trees.

After four hours with no water, and maintenance refusing to come (because “it’s the gardeners’ fault”), the boss garden man announced with a megawatt grin: “It’s fixed!”

Funnily, his head scarf had disappeared.

Layan Community - gardens destroyed

A sad day for our garden at Layan Community

But actually I have a big soft spot for our gardeners. They might have very little English and even less gardening knowledge, but they’re nice to my children, and kept our garden not just alive but manicured in extreme temperatures for seven long summers.

During the hot months, they toil away with beads of sweat rolling down their foreheads, doing much of the work with their hands, literally scrabbling around in the dirt with their fingers to plant flowers.

As well as plying them with water and biscuits, I’ve run out to offer them a trowel before (you’d think their company would provide one!), and when we asked them to prune some tall trees, we discovered their employer doesn’t equip them with a ladder either.

Said gardeners now have their last job to do at our old house – tearing the garden down (why? Click here), and it was a sad day today when I saw all our plants and trees chopped up. The dying grass, killed by the sun and broken irrigation, was tinged with brown and looked like the burnt-out end of a cigarette.

Returned to sand as no-one wants to pay for watering

Returned to sand as no-one wants to pay for watering

A lone palm tree stood sentinel against the clear blue sky, with a trough dug all around it, ready for the massive tree to be pulled up (the gardeners are trying to steal it to sell, but we’re turning a blind eye). We popped into the empty house, where the AC was still running, and our crew of men were all fast asleep on the hard floor. We pushed the door shut quietly – it’s inhumane to expect anyone to work outdoors in the stifling heat of the midday sun.

Tomorrow, they should (hopefully!) show up at our new house to start the whole process again; right now, the small yard is a sand pit, and the sand gets everywhere, so I’m really looking forward to this place greening up. Especially as the compound’s landscapers also appear to have chop-tastic tendencies and have pruned the bushy Desert Grass out the back to within two inches of its life.

Gotta love Dubai gardeners and their scissorhands – but such a pity we’ve been forced to destroy our much-loved gardens at Layan Community.

If you like my blog, please do consider buying my short e-book: Cupcakes & Heels – I don’t know how she does it abroad. Download it for 99p here. THANK YOU!

Throwback Thursday: Organised Mum’s fait accompli

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I was late getting organised for school this year for various reasons, and after patting myself on the back on the first day for delivering both children to their classrooms (with lunch boxes, water bottles, labelled clothing, shiny new shoes, hats, pencil cases and so on), it dawned on me that the trouble with back-to-school is you then have to do it all over again for another 188 days.

As I dwelled on this while resting my head on my desk, I remembered a character I wrote about several years ago: Organised Mum. Some of you will know her. She’s a yummy mummy-of-three-hen-pecked-children extraordinaire.

Organised Mum breezes through back-to-school week, while my uniform shopping trip screeches to a halt due to the out-of-stock school ties

Organised Mum breezes through back-to-school week, while my uniform shopping trip screeches to a halt due to the out-of-stock school ties

You meet her at the uniform shop – except she’s not there to buy uniforms. She bought those in June, long before the store ran out of book bags and PE shirts. She’s there to buy a new wall planner, because last year’s didn’t have enough space for all their extra curricula activities.

“Are you ready for school?” she trills, with the smug air of someone who could quite easily spend this week by the pool. “Olivia can’t wait for school to start, can you darling?”

You see, Organised Mum has every reason to gloat, because she spent her entire summer planning for this moment. The Organised family went to the Rockies to climb mountains in July, with two weeks in St Tropez on the way back. But she never took her eye off the start of the new term.

Her children were measured and fitted for shoes on a stop-over in London; haircuts were done at Vidal Sassoon in Mayfair; her maid sewed satin labels on while they were away; and she restocked their stationery supplies with some stylish new lines sold exclusively at a French boutique.

Organised Mum has all the time in the world this week, and it’s beyond her that other mothers might still be buying last-minute uniforms. She finds a wall planner she likes and asks at the till if she can pre-order a diary for 2017. As she discusses typefaces, the working mothers in the line behind her, with approximately 10 minutes to get all their back-to-school supplies and get back to their desks, start silently cursing.

She leaves her details and the queue exhales a sigh of relief as she moves aside, but she’s not finished yet. With Mr Organised, a big cheese in oil pipelines, away in Saudi, she fancies a little more adult interaction and asks what activities we’re signing up for this term.

“We’re doing some extra French tuition,” she says. “The girls practised so hard on holiday. Go on, Trixabelle, say something in French. She sounds so clever when she speaks French. And we’ll be at the swimming trials, of course. Harry was very inspired by the Olympics … You never know!” she tinkles proudly.

“Maybe see you at the pool later,” she calls, as she breezes out the door into the sunshine.

Maybe not, Organised Mum. Some of us still have shopping to do.

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00064]Are you a school mum in Dubai? You might enjoy my short e-book: Cupcakes & Heels – I don’t know how she does it abroad. Download it for 99p here. THANK YOU!

Throwback Tuesday: Underhand school run tips

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Mothers across Dubai are either breathing a huge sigh of relief or sobbing into their hankies this week as they drop their children at school for the start of the new term.

But rather than simply depositing your offspring into the classroom roughly on time, it seems there are plenty of tactics you can use (some of them underhand) if you want to achieve a flawless drop off. Much is doubtless universal, but there are certainly some skills that are specific to Dubai schools.
cartoon-shopaholic
Tips and tricks:

– Pay special attention to your chosen outfit. Currently trending is gym wear, preferably black. Whether or not you actually go straight to the gym from the drop off is entirely irrelevant.

– Make sure you and your children are perfectly laundered. Even the slightest trace of toothpaste, breakfast cereal, chocolate, snot, vom or poo will make itself glaringly apparent at the worst moment.

Creating the illusion of a six-hour workout is a useful skill

Creating the illusion of a six-hour workout is a useful skill

– Although a huge pair of sunglasses will hide a plethora of cosmetic tardiness, make sure your nails are perfect and your hair is pristine.

– Prepare to race other parents from the red light, bully your way round the roundabout and take every opportunity to jump the queue.

– Even if you only drop off one child, make sure you drive your seven-seater SUV right up to the school gates.

– Ignore the car parking attendants and remember to cut up your best friend to get that prime parking spot.

– When alighting from your car, greet your friend with a cheery smile and a wave.

– Do not rush or run. Do not push or drag your child. Irrespective of what is actually happening, glide serenely through the school with a relaxed and happy expression.

– Greet each member of staff and wish them good morning. Train your children to do the same.

– When engaging in small talk with other parents keep to the following subjects: how charming the children are, how much the children are growing, how lovely everyone looks, the weather.

– Never admit to another mother any homework not done, lost library books, tantrums endured either at home or in the car, diarrhoea or head lice.

– Of course, all of the above also applies during pick up – although you must ensure that whatever you wear is entirely different from the outfit you were sporting only a few hours earlier.

– The only possible exception to this rule is you may return in the same gym wear, creating the aura of a potential six-hour work out. Sweat patches, however, are not acceptable.

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000038_00064]Are you a school mum in Dubai? You might enjoy my short e-book: Cupcakes & Heels – I don’t know how she does it abroad. Download it for 99p here. THANK YOU!

Summer is over: Time to remember the day of the week

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The radio silence over the past week was because we were moving house. We couldn’t have picked a better time really – it’s as hot as Hades (see temperature, according to the car, below!) and as humid as a steam room. Needless to say, it was all rather fatiguing, and that was with packers who did an amazing job carting enormous pieces of furniture out of the house in the furnace-like heat.

Is it humid today?

The movers went by the name Delight – and, quite honestly, they lived up to it.

All my back-to-school chores were promptly forgotten during the chaos of moving, and so when we surfaced from the remaining boxes, it was with some trepidation that I turned my thoughts to the fact Son1 was starting a new school in three days’ time, and had NO UNIFORM whatsoever.

Cue: urgent dash to the Meydan Racecourse, where there was a pop-up shop selling the red-and-grey uniforms.

An odd place to sell such items, you might think. All the horses were gone (beating the heat in Europe), and the shop was located there as the under-construction school was still in a rather unfinished state with hoardings all around it and builders hammering away.

Dubai has a habit of pulling these things off, and today, the school opened! (Read: Thank God). Son1, who we’d pulled from a school he loved due to distance, had a great day, to my relief. And I finally got some peace, after two months of holiday.

I think maybe all boy mums will know what I mean when I say that after a prolonged period of noise so loud and jarring it could even rattle the pans on the shelf in the kitchen (think: stampeding around, crashing and yelling and fighting – not all the time, but enough of it to hurt my head!), it’s just so nice to have some space to think.

Enjoy the quiet mums!

8 things that happen when your parents sell up

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As if there weren’t enough house moves already going on (EK wives will know exactly what I mean), my parents dropped a bombshell on us a month or so ago.

“We’re selling the family home!” said my mum, trepidatiously.

Well, okay she didn’t exactly say it like that, but that’s what I heard!

“You’re what?” I said, going into shock as I imagined mum excitedly packing everything up. They’ve been there nearly 30 years, and it’s the house I lived in, came back to for weekends and many a Christmas, and, since becoming an expat, have stayed in every summer for long periods with my own kids.

We’re ‘vacationing’ at the house right now, and there are at least eight things I’ve learnt about parents downsizing.

  1. When you tell the children their grandparents are moving, they take matters into their own hands.
Parting with the family homestead and its memories is hard for all generations

Parting with the family home and its memories is hard for all generations

2. I’m suddenly attached to everything in the house.

"Could you keep it? Just for a little bit longer?"

“Could you keep it? Just for a little bit longer?”

3. As well as all the clearing out I’m doing in Dubai, there’s another few tonnes to sift through here.

So much stuff

4. I’ll spend at least 10 minutes reading every single letter from my childhood penpal.

The lost art of letter writing needs special attention

The lost art of letter writing needs special attention

Which means I’ll be done sorting everything out in … 10 years.

5. To keep all the photos and certificates or not? That is the question.

Full disclosure: Most of the certificates are for participation

Full disclosure: Most of the certificates are for participation

6. You hide down the bottom of the garden when some people look round … then get talking.

And find out their kids go to the same school in Dubai as your own

And find out their kids go to the same school in Dubai as your own

It really is such a small world.

7. You go to make one last mark on the height chart … and discover he’s outgrown it.

height chart

8. You go out with your family for the day and realise that your home isn’t going anywhere.

Worthing pier

Throwback Thursday: The Expat Olympics

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Circles staggers over the final hurdle to win gold in the hail-a-taxi-in-rush-hour relay!

Circles staggers over the final hurdle to win gold in the hail-a-taxi-in-rush-hour relay!

If you think about it, it’s a funny ole thing that expats spend such a big chunk of the year away from their adopted home, living out of a suitcase. While most people take two-week holidays, for expats six to eight weeks is often necessary in order to see all your family and friends who you don’t see the rest of the year.

As we all know, it’s not always plain sailing …

With the Rio Olympics about to start, I thought I’d repost my list of some of the events that expats the world over would be in great shape for this summer:

Speed

  • Catch every flight, with time to spare
  • Pole-position passport-queuing
  • The find-your-holiday-home-before-dark Road Race
  • The 32-hour-day Time Trial
  • Sprint to the toilets before the inevitable

Endurance

  • The up-before-dawn jet-lagged 6YO (how long til you lose it?)
  • The bath-book-bed triathlon in new surroundings
  • The time-zone jump (how many days to adjust? Bonus points for family members under 10)
  • The Eventing marathon (plan and execute four to six weeks of events and get-togethers without leaving anyone out)
  • The 1,500km cross-country steeplechase (how many relatives can you visit?)
  • Sofa surfing (who needs a good night’s sleep anyway?)

Gymnastics

  • Stay vertical at the Bar during reunions with friends
  • The Parallel park on tiny roads
  • The Roll-your-clothes test (does this mean you can fit more in your suitcase?)
  • Pommelling-it-shut after repacking
  • The Beam-me-up-Scotty moment (when it all gets too much)
  • The Dismount (when DH extricates himself from the travelling circus and goes back to work – no blubbing)

Skills

  • The daily Dress-Arghh competition (find something uncreased to wear in your capsule wardrobe)
  • Ride public transport in rush hour with children and suitcases
  • The don’t-stick-your-oar-in family regatta (aka, don’t rock the boat if it’s best left unsaid)
  • The triple shift childcare derby (one mum, two whining kids, DH gone)
  • Synchronised schedules (find a good moment to Skype your absent DH)
  • The overtired tantrum throw (how many until you have one yourself?)

On being an emotional wreck at the end of term!

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I can’t believe it’s nearly the end of the school year. Just a week to go here in the UAE. I find it such an emotional time. Friends leaving, switching schools. A forced move coming up. Time passing too quickly.

I had a mini meltdown today. Overwhelmed by it all, tears crept out the corners of my eyes and I wiped them away briskly before I turned into a huge puddle. They were triggered by a goodbye email from Son#1’s teacher, an incredible lady who has nurtured so much creativity in the class. I’m so grateful to this teacher for steering the children through such a wonderful year (Son#1’s last at this particular school due to our forced relocation).

Barack Obama

Guess who? Thank God he didn’t do Trump

It does seem that the end-of-the-school year is a period of heightened emotion for many people in the UAE. Not only are most of us leaving on extended summer leave to escape the climate, but this year a greater number of families are exiting the country permanently. The past few months have seen quite a shake-up, with some big and difficult decisions to make. Good luck to all of you spreading your wings and know that you’ll be sorely missed.

Before this post sets me off again, here’s some light relief – my 10-year-old’s wish list, which came home today as part of his portfolio of work. Amid all the change in the air, this really made me smile – as did the artwork pictured. Son#1 hasn’t been the easiest child, but his left-handed creativity blows me away!

A 10-year-old boy’s wish list

No homework
Free laptop
Lamborghini (spelling corrected – only in Dubai!)
Xbox 360
A real lightsaber
No brother (I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, haha!)
Nerf gun
iPad 5

Max's art

Love how the tree has money, iPads and Xb0x controllers as fruit. Who says these things don’t grow on trees?!

On watching our little tadpoles in the school swim gala

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All the parents from Son2’s year were invited yesterday to watch the swim demo.

There are some remarkable swimmers among school children in Dubai – given that they swim so regularly, both at school and for fun, it wouldn’t surprise me if the next Michael Phelps came from the emirate. These seven-year-olds make it look easy, slicing through the water like fish, their arms thrashing away as though controlled by a metronome. The smooth strokes of the kids in swim squad are a pleasure to watch.

But (and this might just be me), after dropping Son2 off, my heart did sink a little at not being able to go straight home and get on with all the things I need to do before the long summer holiday kicks in. (I’ll bet I’m not the only knackered mum who feels like the holiday is hurtling towards us like a freight train.)

Is that you, Son2? Hard to tell.

Is that you, Son2? Hard to tell.

The demo started at 8.10am, which meant that between drop off and taking our positions round the edge of the pool, there were a few spare minutes to grab a quick Costa and move the car to a proper parking place. Of course, this all took longer than I’d expected, and so when I got to the sparkling pool, it was standing room only.

The turquoise water was clear, the kids excited. It was hot, but in the shade it was bearable. There were benches set out, and a clever cooling device – a sort-of sprinkler-fan – whipped the air with puffs of cool mist that caught the light from time to time. Birds wheeled and chirped overhead.

I stood next to my friend T, who’d already been for a jog round the school perimeter. “Really?” I exclaimed, still tasting the buttery croissant I’d scoffed at Costa.

Across the water, sixty children sat cross-legged – all wearing blue-and-white swimming uniform and swim caps. And herein lay my problem. It was almost impossible to work out which one was my son. Even when they stood up in small groups, and dived in, the combination of dazzling sunshine and regulation plastic caps made it difficult to distinguish between them. Once in the pool, the churning water, arm thrashing and splashing hardly helped.

My goggles fit perfectly, said no child everAn hour of watching endless races in which my son may or may not have been participating went by. Circles of perspiration had begun to form on the parents’ clothes. I pitied the men in suits. By now, the temperature must have hit the mid-90s.

But kudos to us – the parents’ enthusiasm didn’t wane. There was cheering and noise. The ‘swim mums (and dads)’ were easy to spot. “Go!” “Kick harder!” I wasn’t joking when I said there’s Olympic potential. I’m quite sure some of the mums were multi-tasking – watching their little ’un swim like a silver fish jumping upstream while also keeping one eye on their smartphone seeking out prospective endorsement deals*.

As enjoyable as it was, I was quite relieved to slink off home before we all melted, having escaped the rumoured ‘parents’ race’.

Later, I found myself in trouble, though. “Mum!” cried Son2 at pick-up time. He had his indignant voice on. “You weren’t watching. You didn’t see me win! Mum! WHY WEREN’T YOU WATCHING?”

* As an aside, did you know that Phelps’ 6ft 7in arm span is greater than his height; his lung capacity is double the average man’s; and his size 14 feet are more like flippers?