Here in Dubai we’re lucky enough to be surrounded by beaches. And we really enjoy them, in every season apart from summer. Right now they’re too hot to go to. So off we went overseas on a family holiday – in search of a beach with seawater cooler than bath temperature, where we wouldn’t get fried and where our feet wouldn’t get burnt by the sand.

And we struck gold. The 115 islands scattered in the Indian Ocean that make up the Seychelles are lapped by topaz waters, with ribbons of white sand for beaches and lush green hills and jungle trails inland.

There’s so much I could write about: the 100-year-old giant tortoise; the vast underwater world just beneath the surface of the turquoise sea that we glimpsed while snorkelling; the perfect temperature and laid-back tempo. Paradise, indeed – with a few surprises here and there:

● Number of mountains directly in front of the airplane as coming down to land: 1 (sharp left turn required at the last minute. Special training provided)

● Taxiways at airport: 0 (planes simply make a U-turn at the end of the runway and trundle back down again)

● Hairpin bends on road over the mountain: 12 (seat belts in the back of our taxi: 0)

● A discovery I made: They rake the beach twice a day to make it look pristine

● Children seen on first day: 2, both ours and both loud. Seemed a bit odd. Wasn’t it meant to be a family resort? Then it dawned on me. Omg, everyone’s on their honeymoon, childless, loved up and enjoying a quiet retreat.

● Beautiful 20-somethings at resort: 100 plus (including bikini models on the beach, European men in speedos and a spandex-clad couple who took photos of each other in interesting poses)

● Boat rides: 6 (alpha male and offspring did not share my interest in sunbathing. We were active, very active. Boats travelled on included a pedallo, kayak, speed boat, sail boat and jet ski, all in 3 days)

● BB’s observations: “Can I watch TV?” (on arriving); “Do they have Boomerang?” (his favourite TV channel); “It’s cold in the Shell-Shells”; “It looks like England” (poor boy, hasn’t seen much greenery recently)

● Buffet meals: 6. Most visits to the buffet at one meal: 9 – DH, not me, but mostly to get food for the kids so he’s let off!

● Cost of a taxi ride: US$50 to anywhere, it seemed. The Seychelles, as we discovered, is expensive (we only managed to pitch up there thanks to our flight benefits and a good deal on the staff website. DH nearly had a heart attack when he picked up the bill for everything we’d signed for)

● Precarious moments: BB on a jet ski (with his dad, I should add) far out at sea and going very fast; LB peering over the edge of the sail boat in rough seas

● Activities laid on I would have loved to have done if it wasn’t for the kids: Rise and shine yoga (if it was a little later); cocktail making; coconut demonstration; spa treatment (any). Activity we did do: tortoise feeding

● Tantrums: 5 plus Me 1; DH 1

● Number of honeymooners put off having kids anytime soon: 15 at least

● Number of times I thought how nice it would be to just laze on the beach, with the kids being looked after at home, perhaps: Censored! (I must be so mean – DH was even really reluctant to leave them in the kids’ club for an hour)

● Magical moments: Watching the kids jumping in the waves; the sheer joy on their faces as they raced around the beach; letting them loose outdoors after being cooped up inside; seeing BB try snorkelling for the first time; marvelling at LB’s sand excavations; sunset over the Indian Ocean.

DH thinks my new blog is a little negative. My 2007-09 blog, he says, was far more upbeat and his pilot friends in the US could show it to their wives to persuade them to move to the Middle East.

Now, I talk about the heat (sodding summer!), freaky Fridays and how naughty the boys are. Maybe he’s right: after three years here, perhaps you do get jaded in the summer months. Life with two very active small boys in the great indoors does have its challenges, after all…

But today, Dubai well and truly spoiled us and I thought I’d do a quick ‘upbeat’ blog, just in case I have sounded a bit down in the sand dunes recently. A long weekend here, we decided to do Friday brunch before DH went away on a trip. So off we went to the Mövenpick hotel in Deira.

I usually dread eating out with the kids as I feel we’re like a travelling zoo, the kids jumping out of their seats, swinging round the table legs and food flying everywhere. But the beauty of the Dubai brunch is kids’ entertainment is usually laid on. Today, the boys ate in their own separate area, attended to by their own butler!

The tables were laden with lobsters, crabs, roasted meats and all kinds of mouth-watering foods. There was a salad station, an Asian-fusion menu, an amazing array of cheeses and, my best bit, the dessert station, with a never-ending chocolate fountain.

It was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for adults.

The kids’ buffet offered more basic fare- nuggets, pasta, cheese toast – but all this was overshadowed by what lay on the other side of the kids area: the candy buffet. Trying to keep the boys away from this was a losing battle, of course, and you might notice that all the sweets within reaching distance of the little boy seem to have disappeared.

After gorging ourselves silly – it would have been rude not to – we waited for the car (yes, we got to valet park it!) and headed home so DH could get ready to go to Vienna. Tomorrow I’m taking the kids to see a Mister Man show, but today, I truly feel like a Dubai gal.

Dhs119-149 (adults); Dhs50 (kids aged seven to 12); free for children under six. 12.30pm-4pm. Mövenpick Deira, Abu Baker Al Siddique Road, jigsaw.deira@movenpick.com (800 33472).

It’s all over! That’s it: no more school, for a very long time. I woke up this morning feeling like we’d gone into free fall: LB’s 5.30am wake-up call is more bearable when you know you can sneak back under the bed covers once the kids are at school. Take that luxury away – remove the routine that gives me space to work, shop, think – and I’m left wondering why the parachute didn’t open!

I’m sure I remember the summer holiday being six weeks or so back in my day. Here, it’s nearly double that. But most people don’t stay in Dubai. They escape the furnace for cooler climes, often for the whole summer.

There are a lot of good-byes flying around at the moment as people leave for their home countries – and a few to friends who are leaving permanently, too. So it’s a funny ole time of year. A mass exodus, families getting split up (while mums and kids head home, our menfolk have to stay here to work, of course), the stifling heat. Yesterday in school, it all got a bit emotional. DH did the last school pick-up and found himself in a classroom of teary-eyed mums. “Whoa,” he remarked later. “So much oestrogen.” And he was stuck until he got the report card!

I think the thing that has left everyone stunned is how fast the school year went – didn’t it just start a few months ago? BB learnt a lot, and so did I. Here are just some of the things I found out about schools here in Dubai:

● The school year is littered with holidays, including the Prophet’s birthday, National Day and Eid. Even the last day of this term was declared a public holiday, making the lengthy summer holiday even longer. Because Muslim festivals are timed according to sightings of the moon, dates are approximate and only confirmed nearer the time (so just when you thought the kids would be at school….!) BB has Christian holidays off, too.

● Kids love to give each other nicknames, like Apple Sauce (Abel) and Corner (Connor), because he liked sitting in the corner, in BB’s class this year. But when BB was given a nickname (Maxi-taxi), my goodness, he was upset!

● Some kids start school here with no English at all. They’re literally thrown in at the deep end and immersed in an English-speaking classroom. There may be some initial frustration, but it’s amazing how after three months, and some extra tuition, they’re talking English fluently.

● For his part, BB has had French and Arabic lessons at his international school this year – subjects that I may have to swot up on myself soon. My friend at sandboxmoxie.com was in a bit of a pickle earlier this year as her seven-year-old daughter needed help with her French homework and it was already beyond her. You gotta love Google Translate at this point.

● Next year, I’ll remember that when the school holds an International Day, to take it seriously – very seriously! The kids went to school in their national dress or colours (for the Brits, this meant football shirts!) and the mums created amazing concoctions from their home countries. Cup cakes in their national colours, elaborate dishes decorated with flags. My offering, some Pop Tarts (my excuse, I’d just started work!) clearly did not make the grade. Next International Day, I’ll be hard at work making Eton Mess, a Victoria Sponge, and cheese & pickle sandwiches.

● In fact, it’s amazing how patriotic you become when you’re living outside your home country. My prize for the best effort made for International Day celebrations goes to the school that had a bouncy English castle, a town crier, a beefeater and a soccer penalty shoot-out. How many schools in England would go to such lengths?!

● I now understand why my friends who are teachers are so wonderfully creative when it comes to entertaining their kids. It’s because they have to come up with so many bright ideas at school. A very popular school here (for which we’ve been on the waiting list for 2 years already and haven’t even had a sniff at!) put on a mock wedding this year. At BB’s school, they held a day where the kids dressed up as their mum or dad. The parents came in that day for a little presentation and when the teacher asked one boy who his daddy worked for, he replied – as though it was the most obvious answer in the world – “For money” Of course. Clever boy, he’s already learnt that it’s money that makes Dubai schools go round.

It’s no secret that Friday in the UAE is not my favourite day. The first day of the weekend here – and the Islamic holy day of rest – Friday can be a difficult day for several reasons (one of which is rather embarrassing and I’m not even sure if I can divulge!).

Fridays usually start at a very early hour, with a wake-up call from my kids, who seem to rise earlier on a Friday than any other day. They leap out of bed full of glee and immediately need things. Milk, play-dough, the train simulator game on the computer … None of it can wait and the two-year-old literally pulls the duvet off and prizes my eye lids open.

I know this will change as they become more independent – my friend with three slightly older kids told me they let her and her husband lie in for ages at the weekend, once even taking a photo of something they were building so their parents could see it without having to get out of bed. But for now, in our household, there’s no mercy on a Friday morning (so you’d better not be nursing a hangover as well).

Aside from missing family back home and the lack of structure/school/husband (if he’s flying) that Friday brings – meaning there’s another 14 hours or so between the human alarm clock and a break (ie, bedtime) – another gripe about Friday is everywhere is packed. With temperatures in the 40s and 70 per cent humidity at the moment, the malls are crazy busy. I know lots of people who, not liking crowds, stay home on Friday afternoons.

This Friday, I had a plan and I was rather pleased with myself. I’d booked tickets for the kids and myself to see the play of one of our favourite books, Room on the Broom. What a great alternative to the play area, I thought. But, while very good, it was, of course, all over in an hour and then we needed another activity so ended up at the jam-packed play area anyway.

Putting the kids to beds that night and hoping we could talk about the play while looking at the book (what was I thinking!), BB told me: “I don’t want to read Room on the Broom. I’m bored of it.” Then he continued, “I wish Miss Romana (his class’s teaching assistant) was my mum.”

“Oh, why’s that?” I asked.

“Because she’s taller than you. And younger.”

And, it turns out, that wasn’t my only misdemeanour this weekend! DH got really sick, with strep throat, which I’d had earlier in the week. It gave me an awful sore throat, but DH somehow managed to mutate it into a man-version that went down his legs, gave him terrible chills and sent him to bed. My brother-in-law caught man-strep too, prompting DH to ask me:

“Have you heard of Typhoid Mary?”

Apparently she was the first person in the US to be identified as a carrier of typhoid – causing several typhoid outbreaks during her career as a cook – and spent three decades in quarantine.

“We could call you strep throat Marianne.”

As for my confession about Friday, it stems from the fact that we’re so very spoilt the rest of the week, you see. Here in Dubai, it’s very easy to become dependent on having help at home. In our defence, it can be a challenging environment – the climate is hostile in summer so we’re stuck indoors, sandstorms dump sand everywhere, and no one has any family support. Help at home is a perk most expats enjoy.

Then on Fridays it’s withdrawn, abruptly. Even the two-year-old feels it, especially if DH is away, and sits outside Catherine the Great’s room hoping she’ll come back!

Friday Facts
● The weekend here used to be Thursday and Friday, changing in 2006 to Friday and Saturday to bring the UAE more in line with the rest of the world. In several other parts of the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen), the weekend is still Thurs-Fri. It still feels a little strange going back to work and school on Sunday.

● The Friday brunch is something of an institution among expats in Dubai. It’s basically Sunday lunch transferred to a Friday, but with a lot more excess. The city’s hotels and restaurants throw their doors open for lavish brunches, with free-flowing booze and buffet tables straining under the weight of so much delicious food.

● Every Friday at noon, Muslims go to the mosque for Friday prayers and the city erupts with noise as the mosques broadcast their sermons on loud speakers. If you’re parked anywhere near a mosque at this time, you will get blocked in as people flock to Friday prayers, leaving their cars on the pavement, on the sand, and in every available space.

I’m so over being boiling hot. 42 degrees is way out of my comfort zone (and it’s only June). If only I could be cold for a few hours, even freezing. With a steaming cup of chocolate to warm me up.

And, wouldn’t you know, yesterday my wishes came true – at Ski Dubai, an indoor ski resort at the Mall of the Emirates.

Despite having spent several sub-zero winters in the midwest of America, I’m not mad keen on winter sports. But show me a ski slope covered in real snow inside a mall? I’m all excited. Naturally.

No one has ski gear in Dubai so the ticket for the snow park includes ski pants, a jacket and boots. Getting dressed up in all this garb seemed a little over-the-top, given the outside temperature, and the fact gloves weren’t included didn’t phase me one bit – surely it’s going to be positively balmy in there, compared to Minneapolis in February?

 

 

 

 

 

It’s minus two degrees. It feels wonderful. It’s chilly, refreshing….we’re actually cold!

Really cold. DH goes back out to track down some gloves.

 

 

Skiers can choose from five runs of varying difficulty – we could even sign the boys up for ski school. For now, we stayed in the snow park and enjoyed the tobogganing, bobsled ride, tubing and snow cavern.

 

 

 

I read somewhere that it takes 3,500 barrels of oil a day to keep Ski Dubai cold. What’s more, because they’ve thought of everything, you can sip a cup of hot chocolate beneath a heat lamp on the deck of the mountainside Avalanche Café. Energy efficiency in action, clearly! (although the website points out that with state-of-the-art insulation and an efficient cooling plant, Ski Dubai is essentially a giant cooling box and actually very energy efficient. Who would have thought?).

Plus, they recycle the snow! You could almost forget you were in the Middle East – until you see locals in their traditional long gowns wrapped up in extra-long winter parkas, or whizzing down the slope with their white tunics billowing like sails behind them.

After lots of fun, we quit while we were ahead (BB feels the cold in the freezer section of the supermarket these days). It was time to take off our snow garb, grab a bite to eat in the TGI Friday’s overlooking the slopes and go back out into the sweltering heat. I’ve a feeling we’ll be back to Ski Dubai before the summer’s out.

BB and I have been on a trip, just the two of us, to Azerbaijan – a corner of the former Soviet Union and a refreshing change from the hot and dusty desert. My mother mistook it for Afghanistan, I, admittedly, had to google-map it, and then the week of our trip it made news headlines by being crowned the winner of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest! Here are six things I found out …

● BB is a little too used to flying with Emirates. We travelled on a low-cost carrier to the capital Baku – a perfectly good airline, but, on finding our seats, he was not impressed. “Where’s the TV?” he huffed, looking everywhere, including under the seat, to see if it was hidden. “Where’s the blanket?” he asked later, genuinely confused that all the trimmings were missing and I was having to pay for everything.

I was just happy to be on a flight that was only three hours long – plus it was loads better than when I flew solo to Berlin on a budget airline a few years ago. That flight, with its free-for-all-boarding, was all about the element of the unknown, including mysterious delays and the strangest noise on arrival, like someone was sawing off a wing. Dubai to Baku was on time, we had assigned seats, and there were no unnerving noises.

● There was one slightly unnerving passenger, however. He thought I was Russian (which I was secretly quite pleased about as being Russian sounds so much more exotic than being a Brit) and wanted to take us on a boat ride on the Caspian Sea. Seated nearby, he persisted in talking to me and, being British not Russian, I politely tried to engage. He looked like he’d had a productive trip to Dubai – the route is a well-trodden one by Azeri people, who come to the UAE to buy electronics, which is why you see so many passengers on the flight with huge plastic bags stuffed full of gadgets, even wide-screen TVs.

● Tourism is a concept only just beginning to take shape in Azerbaijan, as I found out when applying for our visit visas beforehand. We were only going for two days, but I was asked by the visa man if I had a letter of invitation from the Ministry of Affairs and from my friend’s husband’s company. “Erm, no,” I replied, thinking that was it, game over. Luckily, visa man, who was actually really friendly, was persuaded we had no ulterior motive for visiting, other than to see my dear friend and her family, living in Baku as her husband works for a gold mine. On arriving, we still had to get past passport man, though. Not so friendly, he went through my passport with a fine toothcomb, reading every stamp and peering over the counter at me, probably wondering why my hair was a totally different colour in my photo.

● Sightseeing with limited time and four children under the age of seven is never easy, but we did really well considering. Baku is a cosmopolitan boomtown, with glass-clad modern buildings mushrooming at an astounding rate – being built on a petroleum-funded surge of optimism and in stark contrast to the stone mansions and old, shabby Soviet apartment blocks. We visited the city’s walled ancient core, where carpet sellers ply their trade from Ali Baba-esque shops; climbed the 29m-high Maiden’s Tower; and did some people-watching at Fountain Square. I managed to capture BB’s attention momentarily by telling him we were looking at flying carpets, but his favourite thing was the fun fair on the seafront boulevard.
● I discovered the joys of having a driver, who can nip here, there and everywhere – to pick up a birthday cake, do the school run, bring you home after a boozy night. While it may sound like a luxury, having a driver in Azerbaijan is essential if you don’t want to go grey overnight. On the roads, battered Ladas and shiny Mercedes race for pole position, paying no attention to lanes or each other. It made Dubai driving look orderly, and that’s saying something.

● Expats in Azerbaijan are a hardier bunch than us. They’ve lived in all sorts of interesting places, including Vietnam and Uganda (and that’s just my friend). One British mum I met had just moved from Zambia. A much smaller expat community than in Dubai, they face challenges on a daily basis – power outages, the driving, the language barrier. Healthcare is a concern as the doctor may have simply bought his licence – so, in an emergency, patients are medevaced to London or Dubai. As with all expat societies, there’s a feeling of transience, so if a child is off school with a cold, his classmates think ‘that’s it, he’s gone, moved on!”

BB, straight out of the desert these days, insisted on wearing his fleece for the first day, despite the warm 30-degree temperature, and I’m sure has no idea yet how spoilt we are here in Dubai with its shopping malls and facilities.

But Azerbaijan is a fascinating place – a unique meeting point of ancient historical empires. And outside Baku, there are timeless, orchard-clad villages surrounded by the soaring Caucasus mountains. Expat life there has wonderful perks too – a great sense of community, spacious villas, drivers and maids. And if the materials proffered for junk-modelling at school are anything to go by (champagne boxes as opposed to the Weetabix boxes you’d find at British schools), expats in Baku know how to enjoy themselves!

I went back to work about six months ago, mainly to ensure I didn’t go round the bend looking after the littleboys full-time. As luck would have it, we live just 20 minutes away from a place called Dubai Media City (there are cities within the city for everything here – Internet City, Knowledge City, Studio City, Healthcare City, Sports City, even Endurance City, which I thought might be for very, very fit people, but is, in fact, where horse marathons are held).

Dubai Media City (DMC) is one of the region’s largest media hubs, with more than 84 towers and writers, journalists and TV presenters from around the world. Ten years old, DMC is the product of Sheikh Mo’s belief that if you “Build it … they will come.” And so they did. In their hordes. DMC grew from 99 firms in 2001 to more than 1,400 multinational media businesses today – lured by commercial benefits such as a 50-year tax exemption.

BBC World, CNN, Reuters, Bloomberg and MBC are just some of the media companies that have set up shop in Dubai Media City. Publications such as The Times and The Sunday Times went further by publishing international editions in the Middle East and there’s a whole host of magazines, from Time Out Dubai to Middle East versions of Rolling Stone, Grazia and Cosmopolitan.

And this is all despite the fact that the UAE has been ranked 86th in the world for press freedom, according to the Reporters Without Borders 2010 report. When a caricature of Dubai’s ruler floundering in a sea of debt was published in a well-known British broadsheet, the paper was banned from sale in the emirate and a highly critical article in its sister publication a few days later was blanked out in copies available in Dubai (press freedom in DMC is actually less controlled than elsewhere in Dubai and the UAE).

My own little patch of DMC is a tower at least 30 storeys high, from which Emap (who I used to work for in London!) publishes a business magazine called MEED. Each morning, I queue for the lift with people of all nationalities and ride up to the 20th floor where Emap Middle East has its offices. The view is amazing and if I’m lucky I get a window seat.

I’m working as a sub editor, covering busy periods and holiday, but as staff numbers were slashed in the recession, I seem to be there a lot. It’s been a steep learning curve, getting to grips with new technology (amazing how things move on the moment you turn your back to have kids), but mostly because the subject matter is not my natural territory. You know those stories on the business pages of newspapers that you skip over to get to the lifestyle section. Well, now I find myself subbing them. Islamic finance, petrochemicals, oil and gas… who knew!

A good thing – apart from the new iPhone I bought so I could do that scrolly thing everyone does in the lift – is I can actually have the occasional conversation with my husband about the economy rather than the kids’ latest school/mealtime/toilet incident. I could even tell you a thing or two about the political uprisings that have been taking place in the region recently. It’s all a far cry from the wedding magazines I worked on in the US.

Logistically, it’s a challenge, but this is made easier by having Catherine the Great, my wonderful wife at home. And, of course, DH, whose erratic flying schedule means he’s actually at home a lot. He’s stepped up to the childcare challenge magnificently – though every now and then I hear him sounding like me, with comments such as: ‘I’ve been with the kids for three days now,’ and the best one, ‘, ‘Do I have to do everything around here?’

A few other projects have popped up – this morning, for instance, I was working on a start-up magazine for the showbiz industry called Variety Arabia. But I’m learning that everytime a new job comes along I need to weigh up what it’s going to add to my life: a whole lot of extra stress/lots of new handbags/new contacts. It’s a fine line between satisfying my passion for writing and editing and not plunging our daily lives into deeper chaos. The boys are still so little and growing so fast and, this afternoon – as I tried in vain to stop LB running round our compound pool with his watering can watering everyone’s towels – I truly appreciated that time spent with the kids is precious.

A friend of mine was recently worrying whether her kids were becoming expat brats. Apparently, on a trip back to the UK, they were absolutely horrified when she got out to fill the car with petrol and insisted they wait for ‘the man’.

A more extreme example is cited on Mrs Dubai’s brilliant blog. She knew a mum who told her: “We once had to fly economy class and my son had a tantrum because he’d never had to ‘turn right’ before. He hadn’t even realised there was a cabin behind business class.”

It’s something we think about a lot here in the Middle East. The easy comforts of life in Dubai (housemaids, villas, swimming pools, 4-wheel drives) mean kids are at high risk of expat brat syndrome. If parents don’t nip it in the bud quick enough, the results can be quite dire.

Aside from breeding little monsters who refuse to tidy their rooms (the maid will do it), wash the car (the man at the mall will do it) or put groceries in a bag (yes, we don’t have to do that, either!), fast forward 10 years or so and you end up with teenagers who are totally unprepared for real life.

The culture here means children lead sheltered lives. In the UAE, there’s little crime, begging is banned and unemployment is virtually non-existent. We don’t feel threatened walking down a street at night; teenagers aren’t even allowed to take part-time or holiday jobs; and they don’t know what a job centre is. Forget ‘signing on’, they’re more likely to sign in at the beach club.

Imagine, then, when said offspring flee the nest for University back in their home countries. Instead of maid service, tennis lessons and pool parties, they’re faced with grotty digs, rain, domestic chores, hard drugs and even harder students.

In my own household, we’re trying to make sure BB and LB grow up knowing what real-life is like. For starters, we’re making them clean up their own toys.

Our housemaid Catherine the Great has been instructed not to continually tidy up after the boys. On walking away from the mess, she always looks nervous, as though thinking: “Madam, Can you not see how messy it is?”

But it’s a step in the right direction and is beginning to work, occasionally at least.

Expat brat syndrome: The clues

-They flew before they could walk

-It’s not nice outside unless it’s tropical

-They rate entire countries by how good a hotel was

-They have to take at least one plane to get ‘home’ and bump into friends at international airports

-They’re members of at least one country club

-They automatically take off their shoes as soon as they get home

-Their best friends are from five different countries

-An invite appears for a classmate’s party at the Atlantis hotel on the Palm, followed by a private desert safari (note: this gift requires some thought and probably shouldn’t be wrapped in Toys R Us paper)

-They watch the Travel Channel or National Geographic specials and recognise someone

-They know what TCK* means and consider themselves to be one

-Their school is private, international and closes (or threatens to close) for prophets’ birthdays, national mourning, SARS and swine flu

-Someone brings up the name of a team and they get the sport wrong

-They act confused when asked where they’re from

-A VISA is a document stamped in their passport, not a credit card

-They don’t think British beaches are really beaches at all

*TCK=Third culture kid, the name given to a child who spends a significant part of his or her developmental years in a culture(s) different from his or her own.

Conversations about the Royal Wedding went something like this in our household:

Me: “We need to get there early so we see the whole run-up to the wedding” (thinking crazy hats, mad wigs, the royal family arriving).
DH: “Run-up? What run-up? Is there a support wedding, in case the main one doesn’t work out?”

Me: “Look at the dress – and the train.”
BB: (ears pricking up). “Train! – Is it diesel or electric?”

So the level of interest in my family ranged from high (me, remembering Charles and Di so lovingly) to zero (the rest of them), although DH, resigned in the knowledge that he did marry a Brit, amicably agreed to go along with the whole thing.

I was determined that we’d celebrate, despite being far from England with all its street parties, pomp and circumstance, spring weather and days off (feeling quite homesick at this point, I might add). On my side was the fact there are so many Brits here in Dubai – plus it was a timely show. Starting at 2pm on what is a weekend day in the UAE, it coincided perfectly with a Dubai expat staple – the Friday brunch.

Street parties were out of the question, of course, because of the heat, but the city’s hotels and clubs came up with the goods, and even the bunting. At the Dubai Raffles, a royal roast was held with a five-tier wedding cake, while the Polo Club hosted a 12-hour extravaganza, complete with an afternoon of polo. In Jumeriah (the Chelsea of Dubai), you could drop into the Hilton for high tea, including cucumber sandwiches, scones, a Prince Harry (chunky sandwiches, a slab of cake and a pint) and Princess Bea’s Chocolate Afternoon Tea.

All sounds rather civilised, doesn’t it? The trouble was I’d left it too late to get bookings for any of the above – and an invite from the British Embassy for its invitation-only bash failed to materialise.

But my desire to see a prematurely balding aristocrat marry a well-spoken girl from Berkshire and spend a day eating my favourite British nosh (how I crave sausage rolls out here!) was well and truly satisfied. A kind and more organised American friend invited us to join her table at the golf course royal brunch, where we dined on roast beef and Yorkshire puds and watched the wedding on a big screen, albeit at the same time as doing dinosaur stickers with the kids. (Just love how our American friends pronounce Bucking-ham – rhyming it with spam – here I go again, talking about food I miss.)

Later, we trooped down to a royal beach party for a knees-up on the Gulf. It was boiling hot until the sun went down – our turn to get roasted – but well worth it to see so many bikini-clad Brits on Union Jack towels raising their glasses, along with revellers of all nationalities enjoying a jolly good party.

So, a great, flag-waving day it was, even here in the desert. I did get to see the hats (my favourites being the ones that jutted out obtrusively from people’s foreheads and Tara P-T’s shoe-on-her-head contraption). Like I have very vague memories of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 – we all got commemorative plates, followed by Golden Wonder crisps and squash on the school lawn – BB at least may remember something of the royal nuptials. And we didn’t have to worry whether it would rain or not. Sunshine was guaranteed.

The royal pageantry aside, I was also fascinated by how my English friends living overseas were celebrating. My friend in Azerbaijan did get an invite from the British Embassy and spent the afternoon at the ambassador’s residence, even winning the royal quiz. She went home with an apron. Over in the States, my fellow blogger Nappy Valley girl watched the wedding in bed at 5am, making good use of her new teapot.

The comments her littleboys made are so good, I have to repeat them:

Littleboy 1: Where’s the King? There’s no King? (she explained about the Duke of Edinburgh). He must be older than the Queen. He’s taller. Where’s the president? (Good question….)

Littleboy 2: I like that girl. The one in the white dress.

Celebrating a Christian holiday such as Easter in the UAE, where the laws, shopping malls and work schedules are governed by Islam, is a rather different experience.

Of course the supermarkets stock plenty of chocolate eggs, but if you wanted to host an Easter feast, with forbidden holiday sundry such as chunks of ham and champagne, you’d have to put a bit more thought into it.

Our Easter involved nothing as lavish as this. The Little Boy (LB) decorated some hard-boiled eggs at nursery – I didn’t get to see them, as by the time I’d got home from work, the Big Boy (BB) had eaten them.

Since Easter Sunday is a regular work day here and the start of a new school term for many kids, lots of expats pretend it’s Easter on Good Friday (the first day of the weekend). Another difference is that it’s distinctly unspring-like. Being north of the equator, it is technically spring in the Middle East, but the temperature has been rising for the past few weeks, reaching a rather sticky 38°C (90°F) – and it’s only going to get worse. So rather than being full of the joys of spring and life bursting forth, it’s more like life about to get scorched under the hottest sun on earth. The warm weather means outdoor Easter egg hunts are a rather hurried affair, before the eggs melt into chocolate milk puddles and the children might as well go round with straws rather than baskets.

We went off in search of the Easter bunny on Friday and found him at an Easter buffet at the golf course (must have been sweating like mad in his bunny suit). To get there, we took the off-road route across the desert and came across a couple of guys trying to dig their car out of the sand. The wheels of their Landcruiser had sunk so deep into the soft sand, there was little we could do to help other than give one of them a lift back to our compound so he could pick up their other car – a Hummer – to attempt to drag the SUV out. Embarrassingly, BB reacted to their misfortune with utter glee – the excitement was probably the highlight of his evening, better than the face painting, bouncy castle and entertainers at our Easter celebration.

Lots of kids were kept home from school today, Easter Sunday – BB, in fact, has another week of holiday anyway. We spent the day keeping cool in the water at one of the local beach clubs, which means tomorrow we’ll probably be nursing sunburn as well as a chocolate hangover. BB is actually a bit confused about Easter and has been busy hiding eggs for the Easter bunny to find. He has, however, decided that the Easter bunny is his favourite animal, above cats, dogs and even snakes.