Loves kids but couldn’t eat a whole one

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We’ve had a tsunami of visitors over the past few weeks – and the great thing about having friends and family to stay is you get to do some of the touristy things in Dubai, which usually come third or fourth fiddle to the mundane everyday stuff.

And, of course, when home comes to visit, it’s the most wonderful chance to spend time with loved ones – in the sun, on the beach, at the pool and out at dinner. Until the time comes for them to leave, and you’re left sobbing on the sofa that it went so fast.

As well as my in-laws and my parents, my BF came to Dubai. I’ve blogged about her before as her life is more interesting than the grittiest soap opera.

She might not think so but, to me, hearing about her dating adventures is like a dose of reality TV starring my favourite character – and anything can happen!

Take her visit to Dubai’s Gold Souk to do some handbag shopping.

“We have Louis Vuitton, Prada, Mulberry, we give you good price,” called out a handsome fella with dark eyes and a chiseled jaw as she got out the taxi. BF couldn’t resist and followed him down a dark alley, up another one, through the winding streets until they reached a doorway.

There he led BF up some stairs to a thick bolted door, on which he knocked twice and then waited.

When the door opened, she was led into a room wall-to-wall full of copy bags. She bought four Mulberries and went to leave – but not before the handbag seller thrust his phone number into her hand, saying if she wanted to meet up he’d come running.

Then, in the taxi on the way home, she found herself deep in conversation with the driver about all sorts of ‘taboo’ subjects, from religion to marriage.

But her most promising ‘holiday romance’ was the good-humoured man she met on the airplane on the way home, who kept her entertained the whole flight and has since texted BF to see if they could meet up. BF has always harboured a desire to join the mile-high club, but promises me she passed up the opportunity, fearing the consequences on the Royal Brunei aircraft would be too great to bear.

Aside from providing a steady stream of hilarious stories, the thing that struck me about BF’s visit was just how much fun you can have with kids when you’re not the one responsible for feeding them, keeping them alive, dragging them to bed and clipping their toenails.

BF doesn’t have children of her own and admits that the older she gets, the less appealing she finds the idea – but she’s the most amazing Godmother and auntie to at least nine kids.

My boys and BF ran round like lunatics, squirting water at each other on the beach, and making each other laugh hysterically. She didn’t mind when BB puckered his lips as though to plant a kiss on her cheek and blew a huge raspberry – or when he held onto her in the swimming pool calling out ‘Giddy Up’ like she was his personal pack horse.

BF took it all in such good spirit – even when BB cheekily pulled her tankini bottoms down as she was getting out of the pool.

We all had such fun in the sun – and I miss BF (who blogs at lujat71) terribly now.

There is, of course, the possibility that BF, who spends her working life protecting children, will become a parent in the future – if she chooses to – perhaps not through conventional means. But for now – to use BF’s words, it’s a case of loves kids but couldn’t eat a whole one!

Happy 40th birthday UAE!

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Today was National Day, the 2 December anniversary of the creation of the UAE – and a big birthday, too, as this year the UAE turned 40.

I can sympathise as mine is just round the corner, although compared to a soon-to-be 40 mum wondering whether I should be having a mid-life crisis, a 40-year-old nation sounds like a spring chicken.

This is actually someone's house! The photo is from last year, but we saw a quite a few villas just like this today while driving down Jumeirah Beach Road

BB came home from school this week waving a flag, the Emiratis decorated their cars and put lights up, and the Thursday before National Day was declared a public holiday for the Islamic New Year, making it a long weekend.

The parades, including a Ferrari and classic car parade, the fireworks, the shows, the Dubai Fountain dancing to the UAE National Anthem, the flags on cars, hot-air balloons and the Sheikh reading poetry on the radio combined to create an electrifying buzz.

Both boys enjoyed celebrations at school and nursery earlier in the week. The Arabic department at BB’s school requested that the kids wear national dress on Tuesday, leaving us mums scratching our heads over where to buy an abaya or dishdash small enough, but this was quickly followed by an email saying national colours would do.

LB’s nursery put on a lovely morning of activities that I went to with high expectations as they’d advertised among other things mosque-decorating and a dhow (traditional sailing vessel) to climb on board – they really pushed the boat out (excuse the pun!) and I wasn’t disappointed.

National Day is never entirely smooth, however – a number of young drivers always go a little crazy and indulge in stunt driving, such as driving on two wheels, which led to the impoundment of 440 cars during last year’s celebrations.

This year, the prize for the best-dressed vehicle went to an Emirati business woman who spent 162,000dhs on decorating her car with 150,000 individual Swarovski crystals – here she is showing her bling BMW to the media.

But my favourite National Day story is still my boss’ tale from last year, because it sums up perfectly the kind of exotic pets the wealthy Emiratis can afford to own. He took his kids down to Beach Rd for a ‘cultural experience’ and, amid all the spray foam and silly string, they spotted a funny-looking dog in the back of a car. Closer inspection revealed it wasn’t a dog – but a lion (not fully grown, but even so!).

Concrete jungle: A Dubai moment

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Over the past year, the car park at our local supermarket has got busier and busier – so that now we have a situation where huge SUVs lie in wait for shoppers and stalk you as you’re pushing your trolley back to your car.

If you are lucky enough to find a space that’s not a 10-minute walk from the store, it’s likely that manoeuvring into it will involve squeezing between a badly parked Land Cruiser and a concrete pillar.

A pet peeve in Dubai: Cramped, British-style parking for enormous American cars


Given that grocery shopping at this particular store entails handing over 200 dhs for some milk, bread and a sausage, the whole experience can be rather frustrating from start to finish.

To make things a little less stressful, I always go to my secret parking spot downstairs – OK, it’s not exactly secret, but I do find that fewer shoppers make the right-angle turn to go down the narrow ramp into the bowels of the car park.

Today, though, I wish I’d stayed upstairs. To cut a long story short, there was a car in the way of the self-important type, I ended up going in a different direction to usual and was looking for the exit rather than what was right in front of me (do these sound like excuses?)

There was the most awful crunching noise – the sound of concrete and metal being welded together – so loud and splintering I saw the faces of two shoppers visibly wince.

When we first arrived in Dubai, before the debt crisis, there was so much development going on it felt like we were living in one big construction site, with a quarter of the world's cranes rumoured to be located in the emirate

“W-t-f was that,” poured out of my mouth as I leapt out of the car – and our nice car too, a Dubai purchase that we splurged DH’s bonus on earlier this year (and being of the sporty variety, very low to the ground – this is relevant, you’ll see why).

The car was stuck, its back wheels spinning – stuck on a divider I should have driven round rather than over. In my defence, it was one of those ‘Dubai moments’ – where else would you find a concrete island in the middle of the road with no distinguishing features (no poles, no stripes, just exactly the same shade of grey as the ground)?

Only the other day I was laughing as a friend told me how she’d walked out of a spa treatment and straight into unset concrete – completely ruining her shoes as well as her relaxed mood.

The two witnesses – who at first shot me a look that said, “Dumb expat blonde in an Infiniti, she should know better” – ended up taking pity on me and helped push the car off – and away I went, trying to retain my dignity behind the tinted windows, but thinking “Oh god, what have I done to the chassis and will I fall out the bottom of the car on Emirates Rd on my way home?”

I’m reliably informed that the planet Mercury is in retrograde at the moment and apparently things always go awry during these periods – I’m not usually superstitious but can't help wondering if this is why I accidentally cut up our bank card this week and stranded the car on a concrete island. Things return to normal, astrologically speaking, on 14 December – or am I just making excuses again?

World’s fastest rollercoaster

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When you’re given protective goggles to stop your eyeballs popping out, you know the ride you’re about to go on won’t be all about the view.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask DH, who – used to being in control of fast-moving metal in his job as a pilot – looks more nervous than I expected.

“Too late now,” he replies, as they lower the lap bar and the bright red Formula Rossa rollercoaster at Abu Dhabi’s Ferrari World is prepared for launch.

It pulls out of the station to whoops and cheers from other riders, then we hear the launch mechanism (similar to those used to propell jets from aircraft carriers) connect to the carriage.

Suddenly, our world explodes into an insane blur of speed. The ride accelerates from standstill to a gut-squashing 150mph in just 4.9 seconds. It honestly feels like we’re being shot out of a canon.

Designed to simulate driving a Formula One car, it’s the fastest thrill ride in the world and the primal screams of its passengers ring out in the warm Arabian sunshine.

My innards feel like they’re being rearranged and my eyebrows nearly fly off when the G-force hits 4.8.

“Oh-my-God,” I scream as the car hurtles up a 170ft slope so fast I’m sure it’s going to take off like a rocket, then it plunges down at such break-neck speed I fear my stomach will pop out my mouth.

A minute-and-a-half later it’s all over, the brain-shuddering high-speed twists, turns and chicanes completed. Climbing out isn’t easy as my fingers need prizing from the restraint bar and my legs have turned to jelly.

“Would you do it again?” I ask DH, my throat dry with all the adrenalin and hair sticking out at right angles.

“No, we’ve done it now,” he says, quite sure of his answer. ‘No need to do it again.”

I really recommend it, though – if I survived, you will too!

More info at: Ferrari World Abu Dhabi

Don’t let mummy at the scissors!

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Yesterday I had a blonde moment, a knackered mummy minute – call it what you like, I’m still kicking myself.

I could reel off a list of excuses – the fact that we have two sets of visitors at the moment, it’s BB’s sixth birthday today and it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all my dear friends in America from all of us here in Dubai!

So I’m thinking about a long list of things, including a birthday train cake, presents, a tea party, a booking for a turkey dinner for 8, pumpkin pie, plus lunches, dinners and activities for our guests and, ahem, Michael Bolton tickets (no, no, no – not for us, but as an early Christmas bonus for our nanny Catherine the Great, who really wants to see him live in Dubai tomorrow!)

It feels like my mind’s on overdrive and I’m running round like a headless turkey.

When my parents arrived the other day, my Mum brought with her a new bank card for my British HSBC account, which I only use when I’m in England.

“Make sure to cut up the old one,” she told me yesterday.

And so I went upstairs, thinking to myself, “I must cut up the card” – and a good job I did too, slicing it into at least 10 pieces.

Later on, I was at the cashpoint in Arabian Ranches searching for my Dubai bank card, coincidentally also HSBC – the lady behind me staring into her gold-clasped Louis Vuitton purse and silently tutting about being late for yogilates.

Strangely, the card was missing.

The penny didn’t drop until just before bedtime, when I asked DH if he had our card (yes, after three years we STILL share the bank card!) and I suddenly realised where it was – in small jagged pieces at the bottom of the bin – my useless old British one safely tucked in my purse.

What a wally – like I really needed another item on the to-do list this week. And how embarrassing that while my parents are here and at 39 years old, I might have to ask them teenager-style to lend me some dosh!

PICTURE CREDIT: Danz family.com

Things that get you in trouble in Dubai (yes, sex on the beach you all know!)

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I bumped into a neighbour at the swimming pool today. I don’t know her well, but she seems really nice, hence I’ve got her earmarked as friend potential (you have to stay on the look-out in expat society, as people tend to leave).

I knew she’d recently been on holiday, so I flagged her down and cheerily called out, “How was your trip?”

“A disaster,” she replied, the look on her face saying it all.

She’d arrived at Dubai airport – her husband already in situ having taken an earlier flight – to discover she shared her passport number with a criminal and wasn’t allowed to leave the UAE.

The officials agreed she clearly wasn’t the criminal (who was a man anyway and committed the crime before she’d even moved to the UAE), but there was nothing they could do and paperwork needed to be completed.

And, in typical Dubai fashion, the red tape is dragging on and has involved several trips to the court to sort it out. I felt so sorry for her – she stayed in boiling-hot Dubai the entire summer with her three kids and her husband working in Iraq during the week. This was to be their first get-away in months.

Of course, my neighbour had done nothing wrong at all, but as expats living in a Muslim country we have to be really careful to respect local customs and laws.

Mall etiquette: If you're two by two, holding hands is frowned on if you're not married


Things that can land you in trouble in Dubai include:

• Public displays of affection – kissing and hugging is considered an offence against public decency
• Sex outside marriage – even expats must be married to live together
• Dancing in public – allowed at home and in licensed clubs, but classed as indecent and provocative in public
• Drinking at home without an alcohol licence
• Bringing certain things into the country, including some prescription medicines, anti-Islamic material and pork pies
• Photographing locals, especially women, without permission
• Flipping another driver off on the roads
• Showing your underwear in public

There’s zero tolerance when it comes to drink driving – if you are found with even the smallest trace of alcohol in your bloodstream you will be jailed. And you’ll have heard about the expats who defaulted on loans they took out to finance the good times and had to flee the country – leaving their cars to collect sand at the airport – or face prison.

Britons are apparently more likely to be arrested in the UAE than anywhere else in the world!


A British friend of a friend of mine did find herself locked up in an underground cell at the notorious Bur Dubai police station. She’d accompanied a man she’d just met back to his apartment and called the police after his jealous ex-girlfriend arrived and tried to attack her with a knife. Both girls were arrested and forced to share a cell for a month, becoming great pals by the end (you might have read about it in the Daily Mail!).

As for my neighbour, her husband returned to Dubai and they spent the week at the Atlantis hotel on the Palm, not telling anyone so the kids weren’t upset they were staying down the road – and looking out over his company headquarters while having a drink in the evening.

I hope the bureaucracy is out the way soon and they get another holiday, because as much as I love this place, you do need fairly regular breaks too.

And if you’re planning on visiting Dubai anytime soon, just be careful not to give anyone the bird, even if they’ve just committed a jaw-droppingly bad offence on the road, and remember, the beach is for sunbathing, not sex. Dubai is great, but Ibiza it aint.

PHOTO CREDITS: ExPIAtriatewife; Dubai Information Site

Kids’ parties: Love ’em or hate ’em?

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I just read a fascinating post over at Asia Vu about how gift-giving in Korea is a little different from what we’re used to. The Koreans take a very practical approach and so it’s perfectly normal to give toilet roll or laundry detergent as a house-warming gift, or rice as a participation gift.

And I found myself thinking, how very useful indeed – wouldn’t that take a lot of the stress out of selecting a gift? Especially when you’re buying a present for someone you’ve never met before, like I was yesterday.

LB got invited to a party – his first that was in no way connected to his big brother – and, though I didn’t know the mum, the child, or any of the guests for that matter, taking him along seemed the right thing to do.

I popped into our local Early Learning Centre to buy a gift and went through my usual conundrum of finding something that was age/gender appropriate, wouldn’t drive the parents crazy, wouldn’t cause injury and cost enough so I wouldn’t look stingy but wasn’t overly expensive.

If we were in Korea, I perhaps could have bought a pack of diapers from the supermarket – not only easy peasy, but also guaranteed to be useful.


Anyway, this morning as we were getting ready for the birthday brunch, it became clear LB had gotten out of bed on the wrong side. He wasn’t happy at all. We managed to navigate the getting dressed part (which can take 20 minutes or more as he rejects all the outfits I pull out), but the tantrum trigger turned out to be which car we took.

“You’ll get cake,” I told him, to bribe a kicking-and-screaming LB to get into the car he didn’t want to ride in.

And so perhaps it was my fault that when we arrived, he made a beeline for the three-tiered, homemade cake and refused to move.

What could have been


So much for meeting other mums – I had my work cut out for much of the party guarding the cake to make sure LB didn’t start devouring the frosting.

But, despite his unsociableness today (which really made me wonder why on earth I’d bothered to bring him), we did manage to make an impression. The moment LB had been waiting for arrived – Happy Birthday was sung and the cake was cut. In his excitement, LB ran over – at the last second taking a tumble and crashing headlong into the cake table.

The cake wobbled precariously. The mum who’d lovingly made it diplomatically carried on cutting slices, while I scooped up LB and peered at the bump on his forehead.

Thank goodness, the cake didn’t go flying – and thank goodness they didn’t open our present later to find a pack of diapers.

PHOTO CREDITS: Free Clipart; zazzle.com; Clipartoday

Office life versus mummydom

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These past few weeks I’ve been working on a magazine down in Media City – some 10 years too late.

Publishing offices here are full of skinny media types, with trendy clothes, silky hair, and because it’s Dubai, a sun tan, exotic accent and just the right amount of bling.

They’re all so young, I sometimes feel like telling them, “You know, there was a time, not all that long ago, when people didn’t have the Internet at their fingertips.”

“And when we did start getting connected at home, it was dial-up. Imagine that. Bet you can’t, can you?”

“You were alive then?” I imagine the young whippersnappers responding, wide-eyed as it dawns on them I’m from a generation that remembers cassette tapes, Commodore 64 computers and mobile phones the size of a brick.

I cover at this particular magazine during busy periods and I said yes to the work because I know I enjoy it when I’m there and they actually pay.

So I’m reminded again what it’s like to be a proper working Mum – commuting for an hour-and-15 a day in rush-hour, doing the grocery shop with the rest of the world on Saturday, and only seeing the kids at bedtime, when they’re behaving monstrously.

It’s always a nice change. Here are some of the things I enjoy:

• Lipstick and heels (with toe cleavage) rather than jeans and flip flops

• Going to the toilet in peace

• Office gossip – generally, though not always, more salacious

• Still micro-managing the boys’ social lives and well-being, but being able to do it remotely, at my desk eating salt-and-vinegar crisps that don’t get nicked

• Not being interrupted every two seconds and when someone does need something, the request not starting with, “Mumm-eeeee, I waaaa-nt…’ Even the office twit seems mild-mannered and quiet to me.

• Incentives like a slap-up meal for the team with the tidiest desks (we didn’t win)

• Colleagues who don’t hit or bite each other

• Lunch out and even eating a sarnie at my desk that doesn’t come with a plastic toy

• Eyeing up a gorgeous dress and thinking “I could buy it! I’ve earnt the money myself!” then being overcome with absent mummy guilt and settling on something for the kids instead

• Not feeling bad about achieving nothing on my mile-long ‘things-to-do-around-the-house list’ – and instead writing on post-it notes that are dealt with by the end of the day

• Making a cup of tea while chatting to adults at eye-level rather than waist-level and who don’t shout at me, tantrum or cling to my leg

• Sneaking back to the mall later to get the dress

I could go on…. it’s one helluva lot easier than refereeing small boys, but there’s a big problem: I miss them and hardly see them! Talk about the grass always being greener on the other side…

Rain – and peeping at leaf porn

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It seems I’ve been prowling the Internet looking at photos of autumn leaves.

On trees, on the ground, piled up – it really doesn’t matter what position, any kind of leaf porn is marvellous! Though photos from America are obviously the best, like these lovely shots taken by a blogger in the Midwest.

I know, I know, fallen leaves mean endless raking and bagging up, not to mention signalling that winter’s on the way. But when you’re a desert dweller, and surrounded by sand and palm trees, you miss the changing of the seasons.

That said, the weather is perfect right now and to make the most of where we live I’ve instigated a weekly trip to the beach, whether the kids want to or not – rather like the compulsory visits to National Trust gardens I remember my own parents insisting on!

Sunset over the Arabian Gulf this weekend

And while I’m talking about the weather, let me tell you about the rare treat we enjoyed last week – rain! The first in at least eight months.

You wouldn’t believe how excited we get. Anticipation mounts a few hours before, with all eyes cast skywards to see if it’s true.

Windows and doors are flung open to let the fresh air in – such a nice change from air conditioning – and when the downpour (or should I say dribble) starts, you feel like doing a rain dance outside.

Every single Tweet and Facebook update from a UAE friend will mention the rain and if you’re in the car, it takes a minute or two to remember how to work the windscreen wipers.

It’s amazing how rain clears the air, too. Seeing the enormous, billowing Burj al Arab (pictured above) from as far away as Arabian Ranches was quite a shock (had someone moved it, I wondered?) and just goes to show what a dust ball we live in the rest of the time.

But, rain in the Middle East has a downside if you’re out and about – the drivers don’t slow down and aquaplane along the roads, with car crashes all over the emirate. The drainage is also completely useless, meaning parts of Dubai, including our compound, actually flood if the rain is prolonged.

If the heavens open twice, puddle-loving kids can’t believe their luck, though may act confused. “Mummy, why is it raining again?” my friend’s four-year-old asked – boy, are our kids in for a shock if we move back to England.

Flooding in 2009: Who would have thought? It literally brings Dubai to a standstill

Eid part II: Ending up in the ER

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I blogged a few days ago about how my plan to spend Eid in England didn’t work out.

Well, we did go away after all. To a well-equipped room, with a TV, en-suite bathroom and round-the-clock room service, centrally located, to BB’s delight, less than 20 feet away from a gleaming gold Metro station.

BB’s idea of paradise, except my poor boy was on a drip, and being prodded and poked by doctors, scanned like a barcode and force-fed medicine.

Yes, we spent the rest of Eid at City Hospital in Dubai’s Healthcare City! Nearly three days and two nights – it felt like forever.

When your only option is private healthcare, doctors don't leave a stone unturned

He’d had a bug, nothing too concerning because even here in the warmth of the desert, there’s a lot of it about. But when we got back from the airport, he seemed strangely lethargic, despite having appeared perfectly well enough to travel earlier that day.

That night his temperature spiked (thank goodness we weren’t on a plane) and so in the morning, we took him to the doctor – who told us to go to the ER.

“Really?” we thought, DH and I both looking at each other in surprise. It seemed a bit drastic. Wasn’t it just a sick bug? And besides, BB was complaining about being hungry so surely couldn’t be that ill. We stuck to our plan to have lunch.

At the ER that afternoon, there was another surprise. A blood test threw up a weird result and they said they were admitting him to the paediatric ward. I still thought everyone was over-reacting – if it was the NHS, wouldn’t we have just been sent home in a matronly fashion to have chicken soup?

But that night, as his temperature climbed again and his whole body started shaking, I began to panic. My boy wasn’t well and I’d assumed it was nothing serious. What could it be and why were we in hospital? They’d even put him in an isolation room to begin with.

There are a few exotic diseases you can catch out here, you see. Infected spider bites, scarlet fever, giardia from unclean swimming pools. In fact, LB’s nursery emails out a helpful round-up of all the nursery nasties every time there’s an outbreak so I know what’s lurking.

The doctors asked where we’d travelled to recently as they thought BB might have malaria. They took more blood and did an ultrasound – all routine tests, but for a five-year-old who’s terrified of the sight of blood (even a graze!) and hates having his hair cut let alone his internal organs scanned, invasive tests like this are a battle.

“It’ll just feel like an ant bite,” said a nurse trying to insert a cannula into his hand.

“TH-AAAAT’S-NOT -AN-ANT-BITE,” shrieked BB, the colour draining from his face.

But he was so brave – and was loving being able to ‘drive’ his bed up and down and position it at various angles – his favourite setting being as high as possible so the nurses had trouble reaching him.

I was trying to be brave, too, but was noticing a few cultural differences I didn’t like. I know healthcare here is excellent, but it seemed like the doctors were more distant – less interactive than they are in the West. No one really told us what was going on and that was just freaky.

Eventually we did get a diagnosis, which I won’t go into, other than to say it’s not serious, has a long name, is fixable, and will be thoroughly researched by myself later today when I consult Dr. Google (dangerous, I know!).

It was so good to come home, clutching a bag with three-month’s worth of medicine and the present we’d bought BB on day#2 for being such a big boy. It was a creepy crawly kit, which he’d used to turn his hospital room into a bug-making factory. They’re in for a shock when they clean.

Some memorable lighter moments:

– “I’m NOT sick, let’s go to James’ house.”

– ‘Don’t touch that train – I’m SICK you know,” to his brother

– “She’s a NAUGHTY nurse, she needs to go in time-out….That doctor is BA-AAD…”

– “Have we moved here? Is this our new home?”

– “This room is just like our hotel in the Seychelles’

– On spitting out medicine, “YEEEUUU-UUUUK, I waaa-nt the purple one” (ie, Calpol)