Category Archives: Dubai

Something out of the ordinary

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Friday isn’t normally my favourite day in Dubai, but this weekend DH is here – which means something more adventurous gets put on the itinerary.

So off we went this morning to Dubai creek, the historical part of the city where you can take a ride on an abra (a small water taxi). Amid cries of, ‘But we want to go to Mini Monsters’, we told the boys they’d love it, despite there not being a plastic playarea in sight. This is something different, we said – and, what’s more, the weather was even refreshingly different today – cool, overcast and with tiny drops of rain landing on the car windscreen for all of two minutes.

Taking in the hustle and bustle of the creek is an un-missable attraction in Dubai and strolling along the banks gives you a real taste of the city’s centuries-old trading traditions.

The natural seawater inlet also offers amazing views of old and new Dubai and as we pulled up, the boys practically shrieked with excitement at a luxury yacht-liner. Redirecting their attention to the rickety wooden sailing vessels (known as dhows), we found a water taxi about to set off and climbed on board.

We’ve done the creek with the boys before on a bigger Tour Dubai boat – also a wonderful trip, once we got over BB wanting to play Angry Birds on my phone – but nothing beats ploughing through the water on an abra, narrowly missing the other abras criss-crossing the creek.

Afterwards, we strolled around the wharf where you can see the loading and unloading of the dhows, which still ply ancient trade routes to places like India and East Africa – and, given the Iranian writing on some of the boats, to sanctioned Iran too – just across the water from us. Spices, textiles, hair-dryers, toys, tyres, fridges and even a Range Rover were some of the cargos about to go to sea.

In many cases, the sailors who brave the waters of the Gulf and Indian Ocean live in these colourful wooden vessels, turning each into a makeshift home.

Even the boys were captivated and actually walked for ages – asking, periodically, if we were in London (!) – [whispers] yes, it’s not often that we walk around so much outdoors here in Dubai.

They loved the boats, of course, but BB’s highlights: the underpants drying on the washing line on one of the dhows and the 50-or-so toilets stacked up and awaiting transportation. Why am I not surprised?

Once BB AND DH had stopped worrying about birdpoo landing on them, feeding the greedy seagulls was very entertaining

The girl next door

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When I joined DH in Dubai – LB a six-week-old newborn, BB a just-turned three tear-away and me blinking in the sunshine with sleep deprivation and the newness of it all – we moved into a small compound that was bright orange in colour with disco lights on the gate and goats round the corner.

Our temporary company accommodation, the complex was quickly renamed The Pumpkin Patch and wasn’t popular, partly because of the goldfish-bowl-style living. The villas were so close together you knew your neighbours’ comings and goings better than they did.

Despite the fact we now all own orange beer coolers emblazoned with “I survived Al-Badi”, I have blurred but fond memories of this compound as it’s where I made my first friends in Dubai – friendships that remain firm today.

By chance, our opposite neighbours hailed from the same part of the US that we’d recently moved from and had a daughter just a bit younger than BB, giving us an instant connection. Within days I’d made a lovely Dubai BF. And, what’s more, the kids hit it off too.

Today, in our permanent compound, I’m lucky enough to have Dubai BF right next door, and our children, who are in the same class at school, play together all the time.

BB calls round for his gorgeous Girl Next Door at least three times a day, and I’m sure they must at times want to disconnect their doorbell as he’s quite persistent.

Little girls are made of sugar and spice!

Inevitably there are boy/girl differences – which, at a later age, make you wonder if your partner could possibly be from another planet – and watching our two lovebirds together has proved to me that these characteristics are hardwired into the brain at birth. Men and women, boys and girls really do think differently.

The sweetest conversation that took place yesterday morning made me more sure about this in-built brain circuitry than ever.

“I just know I’m going to marry BB,” Girl Next Door confided to her mom. “When we went to the playground I told him I was going to marry him, but he told me he was going to marry a toilet [she laughs]. Mommy, can I marry BB?”

“Of course you can sweetie,” Dubai BF replied.

Girl Next Door: [closing her eyes and smiling] “Mommy, are there hearts coming out of me?”

My verdict: girls are from Venus, boys are from Pluto.

How big is your carbon footprint?

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Every time I visit the UK I’m struck by the “greenness” and I’m not talking about the grassy fields and rows of hedges – I mean all the eco-friendly, earth-saving devices that help you use less of the world.

It all leaves me feeling terribly guilty, because while we re-use hundreds of plastic bags from the supermarket, never tumble dry clothes (the climate takes care of that) and do recycle some things, I drive a gas-guzzling 4×4 (show me a mum in Dubai who doesn’t?) and have little choice but to use air conditioning to cool our home for at least two-thirds of the year.

In fact, I read somewhere that UAE residents consume more natural resources than anybody else on earth, ahead of the US even, and that our per capita footprint is an ecologically embarrassing 9.5 global hectares.

Now you think we’re greedy so-and-sos, don’t you?

I have to confess I do love American Crate & Barrel’s eco-friendly Oasis sofa with soy-based cushions – so good you could almost stir-fry them – and those gas-sipping hybrid cars are pretty cool. But since conservation probably shouldn’t be all about buying more things, here are some of the planet-pleasing measures that impressed me on my recent trip home:

@RubyGingerBunty loved their Cozy Coop rain covers #scrambledplease

At my parent’s house: In line with the UK’s phase-out of traditional lightbulbs, the bulbs are all ‘green’ (not literally, obviously) and uncooked scraps are tossed in a tall container. When the pot’s full my mum empties it on the compost heap in the garden – the bag and all, because that’s biodegradable too.

At my brother’s: They keep chickens in a 5-star coop and in return are treated to a bountiful supply of thick-shelled eggs (the sign of a healthy hen). These aren’t just any old chickens – lovingly cared for by my adorable, seven-year-old niece, the hens have their own twitter account and ‘tweet’ every day. You can imagine the backtracking I did when I, without thinking, offered my niece a chicken sandwich at lunch. She eats duck wraps now instead.

At my cousin’s house: They’ve had solar panels installed on the roof and are actually selling electricity to the National Grid. I think they’ve made about 42 pence so far this winter.

Maybe it was pounds, but either way just think how much money we could make if we tapped into Dubai’s year-round sunshine and put solar panels on our villas here! Ker-ching! Not to mention the joy of charging Dewa*.

Next time I go to the UK, I’m going to see if I can bring a panel back as over-sized baggage.

*Dubai Electricity & Water Authority, whose billing system, as Dubaihousewife points out, is like being connected to a reverse lottery (4,000 bucks to water your pots, seriously?)

The airport run

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I don’t know about you, but the school holiday/Christmas combo wore me out – if I’d propped my eyelids open with cocktail sticks, I would still have fallen asleep.

And as BB’s school goes back a week later than nearly every other school in the world, I decided to take him home to his grandparents in England so they could do some advanced babysitting.

So here we are – in chilly Surrey (it’s 7 degrees and I arrived in flip-flops!), having got here by the skin of our teeth.

Suffice to say, our tickets – which were meant to be confirmed, weren’t – so standby it was, again. We tried four different flights over 24 hours, which involved lots of waiting (and you know how painful this can be with a small child in tow – personally I’d rather sit on those cocktail sticks), plus trotting backwards and forwards to the airport in a taxi.

On day 1, after our first crack-of-dawn attempt to get away, the taxi driver didn’t quite get that all we’d achieved that morning was an airport breakfast, and from the yawning I was doing presumed we’d just got off an international flight. So I went along with it. Later that day, we had afternoon tea at the airport too.

On day 2, after an even earlier start, the boarding pass fairy smiled on us and, with less than 45 minutes until take-off, we set off on a high-speed chase through passports and security to the gate – me dragging BB and our bags along at speed past Dubai International’s endless bling bling stores.

While everyone else settled down to enjoy a good movie, BB and I watched the map and counted down the minutes. "Look, Mummy - the front of the airplane has reached England. Are we in the front?"

The airplane, of course, was parked in the furthest-away spot, in the overflow parking by the airport fence, and we had to get to it by bus. As BB whined about how long the bus ride was taking – with eight hours of playing Tray Up/Tray Down, Light On/Light Off on the actual flight to go – my mood plummeted further.

The final hurdle was a seating problem. Having got the last two seats, BB and I were sitting in separate parts of the aircraft – and while I would have loved someone else, and even paid them good money, to sit next to him, this obviously wasn’t going to work. So I enlisted the help of a kindly cabin boy to ask passengers if they wouldn’t mind moving.

The shuffle that ensued resulted in a young man being left without a seat and, it was at this point, that my over-tired, over-active mind whirled into action, with visions of BB and I being deplaned.

“She doesn’t look like a terrorist,” I imagined the other passengers thinking, as I pictured us being marched off the aircraft. “Surely not with a child. Maybe they’re drug mules. No, the mother must be drunk. That’s it! She’s drunk – and in charge of a small boy! Disgraceful!”

Thankfully, my nice cabin boy returned and found the young man a seat – and we were on our way.

And so that’s how my relaxing break began. Just don’t get me started about the flight itself!

Boys will be boys

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What is it about motherhood that makes a congenital worry-wart grow 10 times bigger?

Since having kids, it seems I spend half my life talking the boys down from high walls, breaking up fights at home and stepping in when their antics get a bit too dare devilish.

Yet there are times when all I can do is stand by and watch their risk-taking ways – with my heart in my mouth.

As it’s a little chilly for swimming right now (if you live here, that is, tourists are not deterred), we’re making the most of Dubai’s park life. The city has wonderful parks – green, landscaped, clean and strewn with flowers and things to do, from train rides to trampolines.

One of my favourites is a smaller park near BB’s school that looks like this:

From lush golf courses to grassy parks, Dubai is surprisingly green

The landscaping, fountains and bridges are lovely and it’s set in the middle of a gated community of luxurious million-dirham villas, in which many of BB’s school friends actually live.

The only drawback – as is the case with most of Dubai’s parks and play areas – is it’s mainly nannies who watch the kids, so the chances of striking up a conversation with a like-minded mum are reduced. But that didn’t bother me today, as I imagined myself sitting on the grass with a book.

On arriving, however, we found a towering plastic inflatable slide, with various other 15dhs (£3)-a-pop rides, and I immediately knew my plans for an afternoon of wholesome, inexpensive fun were thwarted.

As BB clambered up the giant slide, I tried to close my ears to the deafening din of Bollywood music competing with ‘Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush’ coming from the helicopter ride opposite.

A couple of kids, supervised by a nanny with no teeth (I don’t mean that literally, I mean a timid, overworked nanny with little control over her charges), were climbing the wall of the slide and, thankful that BB wasn’t doing the same, I relaxed a little – until I saw what he was doing.

He was bouncing at the top of the slide to gain momentum, then took a flying jump, which I can only describe as a backward flip with a twist – landing half-way down the slide on his head with an audible jolt.

“BB NO,” I roared, far too late. I was honestly scared he could have broken his neck. Didn’t bother him, of course. He simply sprung up at the bottom with a massive grin on his face and an expression that said, “Mummy, look at me!”

Boys – they’re not for the fainted hearted – and I know I just have to get used to it, because the day will come when they’ll want flying lessons.

PICTURE CREDIT: CollectAir

Our life on the small screen

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My humble and tiny corner of the blogosphere has kept me busy this year, providing a creative outlet and distraction for me and, I really hope, some entertaining insight into life in Dubai for people who’ve read it.

And a huge thank you for reading.

My goal when I started this blog was to attract one or two readers who aren’t related to me and, amazingly, I’ve achieved that!

Desert dwelling: Sandy pastures outside our compound

One of the fascinating things about blogging is being able to track the readership via your ‘blog stats’. I keep an eye on these because it’s fun to find out where traffic is coming from and also good to know if anything dodgy is going on.

Talking of which, I should probably change the title of my post Things that get you in trouble in Dubai (yes, sex on the beach!), because when people Google ‘sex in Dubai’ they blaze a trail to yours truly.

The seedy side of the internet aside, the blog stats also tell me which are the most popular posts – and I have to admit, I’m fascinated to see which posts about desert living people are most interested in; which nugget of expat knowledge has been most valuable; which parenting challenge has struck a chord.

As it happens, none of the above.

My most popular post has nothing to do with expat life — or kids for that matter.

A half-mile-high skyscraper, known as the Burj Khalifa, is responsible for a whopping 6,340 hits, nearly half the hits on my blog.

Watch out: No job too big, or too small

The second-most popular post was Expat brats: The signs to look out for, closely followed by Happy 40th birthday UAE (thanks to the photo of the blinged-out BMW) and the Dubai driving post with tips on how to be a roadhog.

Of course it would be silly to spend far too long online looking for a good picture of the world’s tallest building just to get another peak in my blog stats. So jettisoning the image I just found, I’ll leave you with a photo of something I saw parked near us recently that made me laugh (and wonder if I should hide).

That’s it for 2011. I have to get ready now for the black-tie-do taking place tonight on board the Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2), moored here in Dubai, and I’m hoping they’ve filled the swimming pool with pink champagne.

Just kidding.

We don’t have a babysitter so we’ll be taking the kids up the road to a party in our compound – within stumbling distance home, so the perfect night out, if you ask me.

Thank you again for taking the time to read about us here in Dubai. Wishing you a very happy new year!

A blow-out on the highway

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Coming home this evening, with the kids in the back of the car, I had a scary experience that’s left me rather shaken – so a bit of a serious post, this one, with some advice for fellow expats who share the UAE’s roads with drivers from around 180 different nations.

It was just after dark, rush-hour and the traffic was heavy. We were on one of Dubai’s eight-lane highways, which you have no choice but to take from where we live – to get to school, to the park, to the mall, pretty much anywhere.

In front to the left was a van, travelling at speed despite being old-looking and probably not road-worthy in other parts of the world. I expect it had one of those misspelt stickers on the back: ‘Am I driving safe? If no please call *insert driver’s mobile number*’

Good luck calling this number

The van blew a tyre – that I know, because I saw a flame shoot out from a back wheel – then I’m guessing the driver hit the brakes, because he lost control and swerved dangerously – careering across the highway, right into our oncoming path.

I narrowly avoided hitting him as he ploughed across several lanes and, thank god, the cars behind us didn’t slam into the back of us, either. The whole episode played out in slow-motion and I shook like a leaf all the way home.

DH, who I phoned straight away, promises me that if we’d crashed, it wouldn’t have been as bad as I’m morbidly imagining as everyone was (hopefully) slowing down, and it probably seemed worse because it was dark, but even so, it felt like a close call, if you ask me, and I held the kids close when we got home.

It made me think: would I know what to do if our car blew a tyre on the highway? Do you know? I just looked it up and here’s what I found:

DO NOT slam on the brakes (like van man instinctively did tonight) as this may throw you into a spin. Keep a firm grip on the steering wheel and do not over steer to correct any swerve or pull. Try to point the car as straight as possible and let the car slow itself down. Put your indicator on and drift towards the shoulder. When all four wheels are off the highway, brake lightly and cautiously until you stop.

Stay safe peeps.

PHOTO CREDIT: Living the Travel Channel

The run on sellotape

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Christmas when you’re living overseas can be a funny thing.

On the upside, here in Dubai you’ve got champagne brunches, take-out turkeys from five-star hotels, child-friendly beach clubs with the sunshine to enjoy them and the fact everywhere’s open on Christmas Day.

My in-laws, who are staying with us and looking to buy property, were able to view apartments with a real-estate agent after we’d opened presents – and could even have gone on to Ikea.

Christmas morning at Circles: But there was no pulling the wool over BB's eyes: "That's not Santa, that's Uncle James!'


On the downside, you’re far from family back home, there are no seasonal specials of Doctor Who or Family Fortunes on the TV, some people think it doesn’t feel festive unless it’s cold and miserable outside and, being a Muslim country, there’s not a baby Jesus in sight, plus you might not officially have the day off work.

And this year – just like the previous two years – there was another curveball for unsuspecting Christmas shoppers, summed up by a friend of mine on Facebook as follows:

“No time to finish shopping, no days off to speak of, no Bacardi (don’t worry, I’ve got vodka) and no husband …. But it was the ‘no sellotape’ that pushed me over the edge.”

Yes, the local supermarket had, once again, failed to order extra supplies, which probably meant there was no sellotape left anywhere in Dubai – leaving, I can only imagine, thousands of expats with presents to wrap frantically wondering if they’d have to use Pritt stick instead.

I called my friend straight away, because as I mentioned before, I have a son who uses rolls of the stuff to tape his toys to the floor so they don’t get cleared away, and so I buy industrial quantities and stash it away.

Next year, I bet loads more expats with stockings to stuff will do the same – as I said, it can be a funny ole time Christmas in Dubai, and apologies for blogging about sellotape, again!

Christmas short-cuts for housewives

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At work, being a weekly news publication, we’re ‘on a deadline’ the whole time. It’s relentless but everyone pulls together and the magazine always gets done – even when the post-recession production team is two people, doing six different jobs, down, like it was last week.

But the Christmas deadline? That’s something else altogether. And it’s not like I’m trying to create a Martha Stewart-esqe holiday like those women I meet with their bright red Christmas manicures and fresh highlights who hung the last bauble on the tree at 2am and had everything wrapped days ago. With bows on.

I’m trying to keep it simple – the less is more approach – but even so I’m feeling the pressure because, having just finished work on Thursday and the kids now off school, I keep counting the days and there just aren’t enough to get everything done.

So this year, I’m discovering that ‘short-cuts’ are the working housewife’s best friend – let’s just call them time-saving devices that allow you to eke out the hours until Christmas.

Our fourth Christmas in Dubai, and still a novelty seeing trees surrounded by palms and blue sky


By now, the kids were meant to have seen Santa, but we failed at the weekend due to the queue at Wafi and when we trooped over to another mall, we were told the part-time, lazy oaf of a Santa there only works evenings.

We could take the traditionalist approach and see Santa in the snow at Ski Dubai, but I’m thinking it might be insanely busy – like the rest of Dubai, which has swelled in size with thousands of relatives and tourists in town, here to have Christmas on the beach.

I’ve also got a sneaking suspicion that if we did come across Santa in Dubai he might be on the skinny side and sporting a sun tan.

So I’ve warned the kids we may have to email their Christmas list – plus friends have told me about a website, www.portablenorthpole.com, which is apparently brilliant – and free.

A more worrying hitch that came to light while attempting to do some baking with the kids is that only half the oven works – it can just about cope with fish fingers, but a turkey big enough to feed 10-plus people on Christmas Eve could take all day to cook.

We're coming over for Christmas. All of us


So I’m looking into take-out turkeys – because this is where Dubai comes into its own. Despite Christmas not being an official holiday here (DH will be at work, training, on the big day), you can pre-order a cooked turkey with trimmings from a number of hotels – some will even deliver, meaning your turkey arrives at your door like a pizza.

A few other short cuts I’ve discovered include the mince pies at Spinneys (delicious), the frozen sausage rolls in the hidden-away ‘forbidden’ pork section, e-mailable gift certificates from Amazon for my family back home and the fact that it’s ok to superglue the gingerbread house we attempted – as it’s too hard to eat anyway and using icing as glue, as the nonsense in the flat-packed kit suggested, resulted in a derelict shack.

The red nails are even a possibility now that I’ve clawed back a few hours. But not the holiday highlights – because my hairdresser makes enough money here giving women beautiful sun-kissed hair-dos that she can afford to leave early for a beach resort in Thailand.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE – AND WISHING YOU ALL GOOD THINGS IN 2012!

Santa in the desert: The man himself arrived in a red Hummer at an event organised by the Dubai Irish Society

Desert dress sense: A fashion opportunity

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Last night I went to a Christmas party wearing my Ugg boots – a purchase I persuaded DH to buy from the knock-off markets of Shanghai.

Worn without socks - talking of which, I'd been here two years before buying a pair of socks


Their first outing since their arrival months ago, they are, of course, about as necessary as ice scrapers and anti-freeze are in the desert.

But my friend who held the party said there would be snow on the ground (and there was, in the form of fake snow sprinkles!) so it seemed too good a fashion opportunity to miss, even if by the end of the night my feet and half my legs had suffocated in their fur-lined encasings.

It goes without saying that fashion in the desert is biased towards the summer season: flips flops, shorts, maxi dresses and summer tops are year-round staples. Women own tops for fat days, tops for thin days. Short-sleeve tops that aren’t too revealing for the mall, T-shirts that hide underarm stubble, ‘look at my curvy body’ spaghetti tops and ‘I can be sensible’ light-weight tops that hide your bra straps for work.

And another essential in the land of eternal summer: bikinis – which have categories all of their own.

Needed in all colours

On the upside, all these items are easy to pack if you’re coming to Dubai on holiday, but when you live here – rather like eating cheese and tomato sarnies with no mayo for lunch every day – it’s easy to get bored of your summer wardrobe and long to wear a sleeve, boots, a winter coat, layers and a scarf for a change.

Hence my joy at wearing the Uggs last night, putting a sweater on to go to a cinema with chilly air-conditioning, and covering up in the cooler evenings. Ironically, the clothes stores here are full of wooly winter stock, which all looks so tempting but is really only of any use if you’re travelling to cooler climes.

This all leads me to a question I’ve been asked several times by people coming to visit us here: what is appropriate clothing in a Muslim country?

Most ‘normal’ clothing is tolerated in Dubai as long as it is not too outrageous – although to be respectful of the UAE culture, some people only wear tops that cover their shoulders to go shopping.

And you wouldn’t want to reveal your midriff or your ‘bits that are best left hidden’ in public as this would cause offence. You might have heard about the British shopper who was reportedly wearing see-through clothing at the mall and received a stern warning from an Arab lady. Angered by the ‘dress down’ – and to everyone’s amazement – the shopper stripped to her bikini. Needless to say, the police were called and she was arrested.

On the beach, bikinis are fine, topless or thongs are not. And while under-dressers (ie, people who jump into the sea in their y-fronts) risk ending up with a caution from the beach police, over-dressers are also being targeted. Over-dressers are fully clothed men who come to the beach not to swim or sunbathe, but for ‘other’ reasons. Labourers who work in Dubai, they’ve gained a reputation for staring at women in bikinis and apparently even photographing them with their mobiles and groping them underwater! (it’s never happened to me, I should add!)

Two veiled Emirati women in traditional Islamic dress cross paths with a Western woman wearing a revealing frock at the horse races in Dubai