Category Archives: Family

The gender agenda

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“Mommy, how old were you when you knew who you wanted to marry?”

Not a question from my son, but from his adorable, blonde-haired, blue-eyed best friend and girl next door, who I posted about before when it became blindingly obvious to us that little boys are from Mars and little girls from Venus.

Childhood sweethearts: But while BB likes to dabble in toilet talk, his BF has more romantic thoughts

“I was about four or five when I knew,” she told her mother – referring to BB, despite the fact he’s incredibly messy and only talks about trains.

Later, she started asking her mom why they lived in the UAE, and not America.

“If BB moves to America, I have to go with him – just so you know,” she declared.

“Because we’re family – or we will be after we get married.”

“He thinks he’s going to marry a toilet,” (don’t ask, but if you really want to know, look here).

“But I know better and he’s in for a SURPRISE!” she giggled.

More proof, if ever it was needed, that male and female brains are hardwired so differently, it’s no wonder we can’t fathom our partners at times.

In need of a vacation

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“How many more days Mommy,” enquired BB this morning. “Is it one day or two?” he asked, his eyes shining with excitement at the prospect of the epic summer holiday ahead.

“Three days BB, three days to go,” I replied, with an equal measure of trepidation.

I don’t usually admit to feeling stressed on the blog, but if ever there’s a time to come clean it’s this week.

It’s the last week of term, the temperatures are in the 40s, we’ve all been ill due to being cooped up indoors, there’s the kindergarten graduation to attend, teachers’ presents to organise, we have a visitor, there are friends to see before they leave, and then there’s the thought of the 10-week summer holiday ahead of us. Yes, I’ll say that again, 10 weeks!

In fact, the mass exodus from the desert to cooler climes has already started. Yesterday, I parked right outside the supermarket and I’m convinced the roads are already quieter. School seems to be sliding into the holiday and every time I meet a friend, the conversation starts, “So when are you off?” and ends with a cheery, “See you in September!”

Crazy, never-to-be-repeated week

Some mums are leaving practically the moment the school gates clang shut, most of us are following within a week or so, and a few brave souls (and women with jobs) are staying in the sauna.

Aside from the good-byes, there’s the emotion of the school-year ending, lost library books, packing, and – of all the weeks we could have chosen to do this – the nightmarish task of potty training a boy who has a deep, deep mistrust of the toilet. Traumatised isn’t an exaggeration, and that’s both me and him – all witnessed by my visiting mother-in-law.

So, while I know I’ll feel like I’m in free fall once the structure of school is gone and DH jets off away from it all to Sydney, I’ll be so glad when this week is over, the farewells are said, the 10 tonnes of artwork filed and LB actually makes it to the toilet in time without screaming blue murder.

There are weeks when my office job feels like a walk in the park in comparison.

Photo from: The Brotherhood of the Stinky Underpants

Technology infiltrates prayer time

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Have you ever watched a three-year-old play with an iPad? It’s actually quite shocking. The way those chubby fingers fly round the screen, leaving smeery fingerprints as they go, and the way the machine is handed back to you with 2% battery power.

While nobody was looking, something has happened to today’s tots. They’ve become ‘screen-agers’, who intuitively know that an iPad isn’t a toy, it’s a toy chest of apps and games.

Here at Circles, I’m continually nagged, harassed and cajoled until I give in and pass the iPad over to the children. LB can find and play a whole raft of kids’ apps (check iGameMom.com for some great ideas) and his six-year-old brother is just a click away from downloading hundreds more from the Apple Store.

“Books….nah! Mummy’s iPad is much more fun AND it can teach me to read”

And, I’m the first to admit, it’s the most wonderful electronic babysitter – especially during those times when you need to get things done, like make dinner, or drive.

I’d go so far as to suggest that iPads might even have been designed with young children in mind. They’re small and compact, with no power cords to trip on or chew, and they’re instantly on, cutting down on whinge time. What’s more, they’re made to be touched, with no keys to get jammed up with juice or bashed.

I worked out today that by the time my children reach middle school, they’ll have been using an iPad almost every day for eight years.

But just as noteworthy is the way modern technology has crept into every part of our children’s lives. Kids can learn to read and count on iPads, they can colour in virtual colouring books, bake electronic pies and video the ceiling. They can watch cartoons and movies on iPads and play games galore. And that’s not all: modern technology can even infiltrate prayer time.

My good friend and mother of BB’s girlfriend told me yesterday that after saying a prayer for her five-year-old daughter that evening, she was asked: “Mommy, say ‘send’.

So cute, it was worth a whole blog post!

A man with a van on a hot afternoon

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Sitting indoors after school today, we heard the tinny strains of Greensleeves – just about audible over the noise coming from the TV (yes, it’s summer, we’re stuck inside and the TV is all that stands between me and the kids climbing the walls with boredom).

As the tinkling notes got louder, so did the boys’ excitement. “Mummeee, it’s the ice cream van. QUICK!!”

The boys ran outside to buy brightly coloured lollies and I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the van, which comes round our neighbourhood bringing a welcome chill to our desert compound. On long, sultry afternoons, it not only brings back childhood memories, but also provides good old-fashioned entertainment as you watch the vehicle being mobbed by kids.

It might be 41 degrees in the shade, with 75 per cent humidity today (yes, you sweat from pores you didn’t even know existed, and don’t get me started about humidity hair), so the ice cream man’s arrival doesn’t exactly mean we all get a breath of fresh air. But as my boys and BB’s girlfriend from next-door sat on the porch step licking the drips from their lollies before they melted into gloopy puddles, I enjoyed a few blissful moments of peace and quiet in the air-conditioning inside.

Results all round! The next time we hear the van’s chimes ringing out across our compound, I’ll have the money ready.

Set up by two British brothers in 2009, the entrepreneurial young pair spotted a gap in the market and filled it with an imaginative small business that left everyone else wondering why it hadn’t been done before – obvious really!

Elderly couple’s marriage tips go viral

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Yesterday, I posted a bit of a rant about getting to work. Yet despite my complaints – and even though the roadhogs who drive like they’re riding the dodgems are unlikely to change their ways – it’s not unheard of for me to actually enjoy my commute.

I get to sit quietly, after all – and I love listening to the radio, especially Catboy and Geordiebird in the mornings.

The other day, my favourite Dubai 92 DJs played a YouTube clip – about marriage – that had me chortling out loud in the car. My steely grip on the steering wheel relaxed and for a few minutes, the furrowed lines on my forehead – the result of rush-hour-induced driver’s grimace – disappeared.

I also realised that other commuters in the traffic jam into Media City were peering at me, but I didn’t care!

Since today is mine and DH’s wedding anniversary, what better day to post this video. Selma and Kenny are an elderly couple who couldn’t make it to their grandson’s wedding and so made a video instead, offering tips on how to have a long and happy marriage. They’re adorable.


And, on the occasion of our anniversary, here are a few things I didn’t know about marriage nine years ago:

– You should never go to bed on an argument…stay up and fight!

– If he lets me think I’m getting my way, I’m happy

– There’s a way of transferring earnings that’s even faster than electronic banking: Me not working

– That we’d end up in Dubai. Didn’t enter my wildest dreams

– That a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person

The birthday week

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It’s DH’s birthday – a big one! The actual day was on Tuesday, but as it’s a nice round number it’s turned into something of a birthday extravaganza.

Last year, the day passed in a bit of a blur, because of a medical drama in our family. DH’s lovely brother, who also lives in Dubai, returned from Africa with flu-like symptoms that turned out to be malaria. He came to stay with us while he recovered, so while all this was going on – and I was busy swatting gnats just in case (despite being assured by the hospital there was no risk to the boys) – my attention wasn’t really on birthday celebrations.

This year, I promised myself I’d make up for it, so in dutiful wifely fashion, I’ve been busy organising a birthday DH won’t forget. I think I’ve just about managed to pull off a three-part celebration that’s taking up most of the week:

PART 1: (the day) Presents at silly o clock, before school and work. Then Bab Al Shams, a desert resort located in the middle of absolutely nowhere, for a late-afternoon swim and dinner. We’ve done our fair share of camel riding in the Middle East, so we lounged in the pool and watched tourists clambering on the camels, shrieking as they were pitched forwards at the start (camels use their knees to get up and down). It was quite comedic.

Bab Al Shams Desert Resort & Spa – not too far from where we live and very, very nice


PART 2: (the weekend) We’re taking the kids away, to Ras Al Khaimah, one of the seven emirates of the UAE, for more swimming and more desert. The resort, the Banyan Tree, looks amazing and we’re staying in a ‘Bedouin-style tented villa’. It’s not a tent, I did study the website photos carefully to check, and I suspect it won’t be the ‘oasis of serenity’ it’s advertised as once we arrive. I also just found out my boss is going there this weekend.

PART 3: (the piece de resistance) Using a ‘buy one, get one free’ voucher in the Entertainer, I’ve booked a ride on a seaplane. I may yet bottle out.

Of course, no birthday is complete without cake. Baking is not my forte so I ordered one from Bakemart. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out and fully expected something like exhibit A. So was very pleased with exhibit B, despite the squashedupwriting!

Exhibit A: On facebook (from Walmart in the US)


Exhibit B: Happy birthday DH!

20 things to do before you’re 12 (in Dubai)

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On my favourite radio breakfast show this week, the DJs – Catboy and Geordiebird – were talking about a list that’s been compiled of things to do before you turn 12.

Skim a stone, climb a tree, roll down a really big hill, camp out in the wild, play conkers, get behind a waterfall, hunt for bugs, feel like you’re flying in the wind and go on a nature walk at night were all included in the list of 50 things to do before the age of 11 ¾ – put together by the National Trust.

It was nostalgic stuff, especially as the NT’s intention was to inspire today’s high-wired pre-teen generation – shackled as they are to their computers, Xboxes and TVs – to get out the house and have a go at what we used to do by default.

Listeners to the show then came up with a number of other suggestions – like buy your own school shoes, drink water from a hose pipe, ring the bell and run away, drop a stone down a well and listen for the splash, race lolly sticks under a bridge, let frogspawn run through your fingers and show someone yours (if they show you theirs).

By this point, I was getting so wistful, I was ready to ditch city-living, move to the hills and raise BB and LB as free-range kids – hunting for worms with them every morning and playing Pooh sticks.

Anyway, it got me thinking that a Dubai version of this list would look somewhat different. It might read something like this:

● Feel like you’re flying in the wind at iFLY, Dubai’s indoor skydiving facility

● Go sand boarding down a massive sand dune, standing up

KidZania is a scaled-down city where kids can play at being grown ups. They can take jobs such as doctor, mechanic, pilot; drive cars; earn money and spend it on petrol and pizza

● Spend the night at KidZania

● Go camping / drumming / hunting for scorpions in the desert

● Take a telescope into the desert at night and try to spot at least three planets among the stars

● Get picked up in a Hummer to go to a party at the Atlantis hotel

● Climb the stairs up the Burj Khalifa

● Throw snowballs / cuddle a penguin at the Mall of the Emirates

● Play pass-the-parcel and unwrap a Tag Heuer watch at the end

● Go on a hot-air balloon ride over the desert at dawn

● Run around in the rain

● Visit a World Island

● Find gold, at a gold-dispensing ATM machine

● Canoe down the creek

● Take a glass-bottom boat ride on top of the Dubai Aquarium

● Get behind the fountain inside the Dubai Mall

● Swim with dolphins

● Play with a friend’s lion cub

● Fry an egg on the bonnet of a car in summer

● Learn Arabic and the history of our amazing little-fishing-village-that-could

To see the National Trust’s list, click here

The pool party

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In my 20s, I had no clue it was possible to finish the weekend so tired! I might have thought I did – what with all those lie-ins, long lunches and pub trips. On Sunday night, as I flopped onto my cream sofa in my single-girl London flat with a take-away and a pile of magazines, I thought I was exhausted.

I was wrong. Oh, how little I knew then!

Fast forward a decade, and my weekends look nothing like they used to.

The little people in my life call the shots. But my tiredness tonight – a happy tiredness I’m glad to say – could also have something to do with the fact that we spent much of the weekend swimming.

I’m also grateful that we’ve moved on from our early days in Dubai, when BB was terrified of water and would rather roast round the edge

The highlight was a pool party – very popular here for obvious reasons. There’s a certain amount of trauma involved, ie, running after two overexcited boys in a bikini – swimming boobs jiggling – in front of at least 20 of the mums and dads from BB’s class. But, pool parties are great fun, especially when they’re catered by a company called Splash ‘n’ Bounce.

A pirate ship bouncy castle had been installed by the pool, with a slide into the water, and inflatables such as a Wild Rocker (which lived up to its name), 4-seater dinghy and kind-looking killer whale were provided to keep the kids amused. Amused is an under-statement. The kids went crazy.

Imagine a water-based episode of the comedy game show ‘It’s a Knockout’ for under 6s and you’ll be thinking along the right lines – the pool wafted by lush palm trees and the mums wearing an array of flatteringly cut swimwear and slipping into pretty, linen dresses in all the colours of the rainbow as the sun went down.

So, whilst I might only have enough energy left tonight to wash the chlorine from my hair, and my fingers started resembling raisins this weekend, I’m feeling pretty lucky that we have such great pools here in Dubai – along with the sunshine to use them (until it gets too hot and they actually have to chill the water!).

Once LB learns to swim too, I’ll be hopping onto a sun lounger and taking the plunge only to frequent one of Dubai’s swim-up bars!

Empty nest syndrome

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Other than bad news from home, if there’s a day in expatland that rocks your boat it’s surely the day visitors leave.

And, having been an expat for nearly a decade now, I’ve realised something: good-byes don’t get any easier.

Departures are generally abrupt and tend to sneak up on you. The day before is normal, full of activity, but with some packing-by-stealth in the evening (so the kids go to bed without a scene).

The next day, the leaving day, can even start quite normally with cups of tea served and some chit-chat. Then, suddenly, suitcases appear downstairs, placed by the door as though standing guard. Before you know it, good-byes are being said and, like a plaster being ripped off, your visitors are gone. Vanished. Whisked off to the airport by DH.

Mum and Dad are, once again, a 7-hour plane ride away

Where there was a book and a pair of reading glasses, there’s now a space. Where there were multiple mugs, there are suddenly empty coasters. Whereas just 12 hours previously my mind was buzzing with arrangements, meal plans and grocery runs, it’s now a void – the lists I made that served as my brain redundant.

As your visitors settle down to an airplane meal and a movie, you realise you hit pause on your expat life, turned down invites, disappeared off the radar so you could enjoy your guests, and now need to pick yourself up and resume day-to-day life. The only trouble is it’s hard to get off the sofa you’ve been so busy entertaining!

The other thing I’ve realised about visitors leaving is that grandchildren take empty nest syndrome to a new, and vocal, level. Oldest son was spirited away by the school bus before The Departure. Youngest son slept through it, then awoke to an echoey-quiet house.

“Where’s Nanny gone? Where’s Grand-da?” he cried, tears rolling down his cheeks. His face crumpled as a frantic search round the house revealed that I hadn’t hidden them.

His sobbing intensified further when he realised his brother had gone back to school (a week earlier than his nursery re-opens).

“I w.a.n.t to go to school,” he pleaded!

With a determined look on his face, he then put his shoes on and marched out the door – and we had no choice but to walk to ‘school’ to prove it was, indeed, locked.

“Where’s Ms Annette? Where’s evwy-one gone?,” he spluttered while standing at the gate in disbelief. “Evwy-one swimming? Nanny and Grand-da swimming too?” he enquired, finally satisfied he’d got to the bottom of it.

“Yes, LB, everyone’s swimming,” I replied to buy some time – thinking to myself, “Yes LB, I know. I feel it too.”

You can take a horse to water…

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The temperature was perfect. Just a hint of summer heat hanging in the air. Turquoise highlights glistened on the surface of the Arabian Gulf and sail boats dotted the horizon.

A kite danced in the sea breeze. There were sculpted bodies in beautiful bikinis. Children playing happily. Mums reading – the sand cushioning their toes with marshmallow softness.

Waves rolled towards the shore, lapping the white sand. Kids squealed as the watery haven moved perpetually closer. The smell of sea salt and sunscreen filled the air.

Expat life at its finest.

Except this Easter weekend, BB wasn’t in the mood for the beach. All he wanted to do was play with his new Lego helicopter, a present from my parents, who’ve just arrived (and are providing the most wonderful distraction at silly o clock, when the kids – on school holidays – leap out of bed).

A bigger hit than the Easter eggs


You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, I’ve realised – especially when the ‘horse’, ie, my oldest son, has suddenly and inexplicably developed a fear of crabs.

And scorpions.

As the rest of us enjoyed some sun, sea and sand and LB busied himself jumping waves – dissolving into laughter every time there was an incoming rush of water – his brother looked on forlornly.

“Mumm-EEE! Can we go home?” he pleaded. “I really W.A.N.T to go home.”

For a few moments at this point, I’m sure I saw a knowing smile flicker across my mum’s face – a kind of ‘been there, experienced that many years ago’ expression that was quickly hidden.

And then, “Mumm-eeee, I don’t like the beach. I just want to go home and sit on the sofa.”

Oh my goodness. I’m raising a couch potato. And there are 15 more days of Easter holidays to go!

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!