returning to Dubai after summer leave Archives - Circles in the SandCircles in the Sand

Operation LongVac is nearly over! Passenger numbers at Dubai International airport have swelled as families return from extended summer holidays, and the traffic on the roads is building up again. Arriving in Dubai after a prolonged stay away is the only time you see the city through a tourist’s eye. You walk through the cavernous, marble-floored airport, with its glass elevators the size of your first apartment, wall of water and endless shopping, and appreciate how clean and modern it all is.

If you’re wearing jeans, they’ll stick to your legs within half a second outside

The extreme heat and humidity slap you in the face as you exit the airport, reminding you just how hot the desert gets in summer, even in the middle of the night. If you’re wearing jeans, they’ll stick to your legs within half a second outside, and you know you’ll be peeling them off your calves later (Dubai re-entry and jeans are like a bad marriage). Then you pile into a taxi and tell the driver where to go. He’ll nod in that Dubai way which could mean he knows the exact route or hasn’t got a clue. In the latter case, you’ll find yourself playing navigator to someone inclined to disbelieve every direction you give him. After the smaller, residential roads of your homeland, Dubai’s twelve-lane highways seem supersized, the lit-up cranes Orwellian. And don’t be surprised if you see more cranes working in one place than you’ve ever seen before, an army of giant derricks towering above a huge construction site that popped up while you were gone. Next, there’s just the small matter of getting the kids over their jetlag and finding your sand legs again – because transitioning from one country to the other is never as easy as you think it should be. For the next few days, Dubai re-entry shock will mean everything looks almost right, like wearing contact lenses in the wrong eyes. Welcome home! Tip: Suffering from Dubai re-entry blues? Please consider reading my new book, Distracted Housewife in Dubai DIARY, for some laugh-out-loud entertainment. Available on Amazon as an ebook (for a Kindle or iPad with a Kindle app). The links are to Amazon.com – just switch to whichever region’s Amazon store you use to purchase. Thank you! Customer Review:

A brilliant book detailing exactly what life in Dubai is like. If you have ever lived in Dubai, you will recognize all the different characters in the story and you will laugh and laugh (and maybe even recognize yourself!)

School runs, Dubai brunch, valet parking...Marianne gets it so perfectly right in a fun and humorous way. Even if you’ve never lived in the UAE, this book will give you access to life as an expat and the trials and tribulations that go along with it. It’s a lovely and easy read!

“I’m hot. Why do we have to live here?” Son1 asks petulantly, after coming in from the heat outdoors.

He looks at me with accusatory, dark-brown eyes, his cheeks flushed red and a bead of sweat trickling down his sticky forehead.

“Well, Daddy got a job here,” I explain, for the umpteenth time. “You know Daddy AND Mummy have to work to pay for all the thing you want, right?

“Besides, it’s our home and we’re very lucky to live here.”

He goes quiet for a few seconds.

“But WHY can’t we live in England?”

At this time of year, Dubai mummies are leafing through their little black book of playdates

At this time of year, Dubai mummies are leafing through their little black books (for playdates)

I explain, again, that, if we moved to England, it wouldn’t be summer all year round. There wouldn’t be fun outings every day, ice cream on demand and late bedtimes. It would rain, a lot.

“And,” I counter, trying to define winter to a child who has no recollection of this particular season, “You’d have to go to school there – and come home in THE DARK.”

I do get it, and I feel it too. Returning to the scorched, dog days of a Dubai summer after spending time in the motherland with family isn’t easy for many expats. It’s infernally hot, most friends won’t surface until school starts, everything is covered in a veil of atom bomb dust and the air is heavy with sand.

But it’ll pass Son1, you know it will. It’s the same each year and, soon, we’ll be dancing to the tune of glorious sunny days, under blue skies, with school in full swing. (Did you hear me whoop?)

In the meantime, darling Son1, could you please STOP whining – I’ve rallied every single 6-8-year-old playmate I can find within a five-mile radius and am on the verge of booking a reality-check trip to the northern hemisphere. In January. THEN, you’ll see, there’s no perfect place to live.