Expat friends reunited

Don’t you just hate it when your child makes a BFF and then said friend disappears off to Hong Kong / Saudi / Singapore / back home and you end up spending every bedtime for the next year wiping tears from the lashes of a child who can’t understand?

Expat kids – lots of tears, but global friendships. They’ll appreciate it one day…

DS made a best friend before he was two. He’s always been the kind of child to single out one BFF rather than play to the crowd, and this other little boy wasn’t only in his class at nursery, he lived just down the road – they played together in the park every day once nursery was done.

But then, when the boys were two and a half, the friend moved to the US.

And I – shoot me now – I lied. “He’s on holiday,” I told DS as he searched the park each day for his friend. I hoped that, after the first three months, he’d forget his friend and move on.

But he didn’t.

So, after three months of sobbing, “I miss X!” I admitted that the friend had actually decided to stay in the States.

“I want to go America,” said DS (fat chance, I thought).

But then amazing news – the friend was coming back to Dubai on holiday, 18 months after leaving. I wondered whether DS – who has truly moved on now – would care.

DS cared. He was beyond excited all week before the scheduled play date. But I couldn’t let go of my scepticism. They won’t remember each other; they’ll be shy; they won’t like each other anymore… I couldn’t have been more wrong. Within seconds of seeing each other they were playing like the past 18 months hadn’t happened; like they’d never been separated at all.

Now I’m working on the mum to move back to Dubai…  well, with a friendship that special, wouldn’t you?

A snapshot of life as a stay-at-home mum

DH writes from a conference he’s at in the south of France (I know, seriously, the south of bloody France):  “Hi darling, how are you?”

Me, from home:  “Glad the week’s over.  How about you?”

This is the cruise ship, Med and palm trees shot from DH’s room. Am I jealous? Yes. Do I want to be there? Yes.

DH sends me a couple of photos of the view from his room: “I’ve just checked in. That’s my view.”

I’m looking at the photos – they’re all palm trees, Art Deco architecture and bright blue Mediterranean Sea. I can even see a cruise ship anchored offshore in one of them.

Me: “Looks gorgeous. It’s been a tough week; I’ve been working till 11 every night. Obviously up at 5.50am to do the school run. Can’t wait for you to get back.”

DH writes: “Oh, hold on. Got to go, they’ve just told me I’m moving to a suite…”

Messaging resumes the next day – Saturday.

DH: “Hello, conference is finished. Suite’s gorgeous! I’m sitting in Cannes old town, having a beer. So what are you up to?”

Me: “Oh you know. Usual Saturday. Screaming loud kids’ birthday party. Now I’ve just dragged two bickering children round the supermarket, fighting with them all the way. When are you back?”

DH: “After the weekend.”

Happy days.

My life as a steeplechaser

When I was nine, my school teacher asked us all what we wanted to be when we grew up. Pony mad, I said I wanted to be a show-jumper. Nick Skelton was, at the time, my hero.

“You want to be a horse?” asked my teacher (he was a bit of a prat, I realise now, looking back).

There she flies, gracefully, over yet another obstacle (phone call to DEWA / trip to the bank / parents’ meeting), the carnage of everyday life as a mother littered all around

Well, my show-jumping career never really took off, despite me winning a rosette in a local gymkhana, but these days I find myself thinking more about another type of horse race: The steeplechase.

For those not familiar with the steeplechase, it’s the one where the horses have to gallop flat out for all they’re worth, then leap over various “obstacles” such as fences and ditches that are often much, much higher or longer than the horses are themselves.

They land hard and at high speed – scrunch – then throw themselves straight on towards the next obstacle, nostrils flaring, breath rasping. With no time to prepare, to gather themselves or even to consider what they’re about to do, they hurl themselves over that, too – ad nauseam till the end of the course.

I have to say: It sounds very familiar. I may not have become a show-jumper but, some days I feel more like a steeplechaser than a mum.

Mum’s leaving… on a cruise ship

Mum left today, after three weeks in Dubai. It’s never easy, that day when your mum leaves, is it?

After spending every waking hour of the past three weeks with her at my side, I feel so bereft now she’s left. The house feels empty and I miss having her around (though she never believes me when I say that).

This year I took mum not to the airport but to Dubai Cruise Terminal – she’s sailing back to Blighty! Here’s her ship docked in Dubai….

And, having visitors of any sort staying means you do more interesting things, too, doesn’t it – when someone’s paid £400 to fly here, they rarely want bad TV on the sofa every night, do they?

We didn’t do as much touristy stuff this year as we were busy preparing for DS’s 4^th birthday party (25 kids at home anyone? Games, food, cakes, bouncy castle and party bags) as well a massive family wedding that involved days of commitments, but we still managed to visit Dubai Miracle Garden, go to the theatre, potter about Madinat Jumeirah and Souk Bahar, dine overlooking The Dubai Fountain, take a scenic desert drive, grab some bargains in Outlet Mall, get our nails done and enjoy several lazy lunches at the Els Club.

So today I’m in that strange zone where mum was here this morning, we had breakfast together, hung out together, then she was in the car, and then she was gone and suddenly, abruptly, it was just me and the kids in the car for the first time in ages.

As I write this, I can hear Gerlie upstairs already, stripping the guest bed and putting everything back in its place. Tomorrow, life will, strangely, be back to normal. (Sob.)

The patronising salesman

This morning I was in a showroom that sells stone flooring tiles.  I need to get our front path repaved as, after eight years of Gulf summers, the current tiles have given up the ghost. DH, quite rightly, has washed his hands of the whole job. At this stage of our marriage, he works and I run the house (or, as he prefers to put it, “I make the money and you spend it”). 

The front path’s given up the ghost – and, sorry mate, but it’s my job to approve budget – and supplier!

It seemed, though, that I’d chosen one of the most expensive stone in the showroom.  And for some reason, the salesman didn’t like that one bit.

“We have cheap Omani marble here,” he said, kicking a slab of dull, white stone I wouldn’t put under our rubbish bin. “Use that – a quarter the price.”

“But I really like the other one,” I said. “How much will 15 square metres come to?” But still he wouldn’t level with me.

“It’s different depending on whether you get pre-cut tiles, or you have the stone cut to order,” he said.

“So tell me the options,” I said, pencil poised to make notes. “What sizes do the tiles come in?”

“Madam,” he said, sighing, and I realised we were finally getting to the crux of the matter. “You get budget approval from boss at home for before I talk to you about prices. If husband approves AED 6,000, you come back and we talk sizes and costs.”

Seriously?

What a contrast it was to the greasy garage I’d been in half an hour before. As part of my morning’s work as housewife, DH had asked me to get two new tyres put on his car. I was kind of expecting patronising and/or sexist behaviour from the grease monkeys, as is often the case when assertive white women stride in demanding high-performance Pirellis – but those men couldn’t have been nicer.

As all four of them lined up to wave me off, one said ever so nicely, “Thank you for first-time visit our workshop, madam.”

Another said, “We have nice coffee-tea machine. You tried coffee-tea?”

“Yes, I tried, thank you,” I said. “Very nice coffee.”

“Come again soon,” said a third. “Any time wheel-balancing – always good job for madam.”

Now that’s more like it.

Sibling love

“Mummy, after school, can we go shopping?” asked DD this morning. “I want to buy DS a birthday present.”

Today a pen, tomorrow a diamond. Who knows how this will turn out?

Forgive me for not replying to her. It was 6am I was weighing up the pros and cons of her request while making two packed lunches and trying to persuade a tired DS a) to have breakfast and b) go to school. My thoughts – for once – were not on shopping.

“With my own money?” she added.

And what could I say to that? DD does not have a lot of money. After Christmas she had about AED 450 (£82 for those of you freezing in the Northern Hemisphere) but, when I sent her out to spend it with her godmother, it turned out she’d blown AED 180 (£30) of that on a talking Moshi Monster toy. With which she’s never played.

I ask you.

Anyway, she learned, I hope, about spending her money on crap, but it’s left her (what with the other things she bought that day, marginally more successfully) with just AED 30. I owed her AED 50 for learning to tell the time properly, rather than just guessing by the position of the sun over the yardarm (that’s my speciality!), so she had a total of AED 80 (£14.50). Reasonable enough, I thought.

So.

“Okay,” I said. “That’s very sweet of you, darling. How lovely to buy a present for your brother from your own money. Of course we can go.”

“I just want to get something little, though,” she said. “Like a pen? He’s only four and I don’t want to waste my money.”

I swear, we’ll make a saver of her yet.

 

Pavlov’s gardeners

I usually provide my gardeners with bottles of cold water while they blow the dust off my fake lawn but some months ago it dawned on me that they may actually like something a little more interesting so I started taking them out a can of soft drink and a bag of crisps each. On a cold day, I was even moved to provide a flask of hot tea or coffee and some biscuits.

I think it went down well, but DH was not so impressed.

“You’re creating a rod for your own back,” he declared on seeing the 20-pack of chips marked “Gardeners” in the larder. I’m guessing he was piqued that he doesn’t get Tango and crisps at home, only Delia’s mushroom risotto with porcini and Parmesan.

And yes, he may have a point. But, to be honest, it makes me happy to bring the two of them a little joy in their long working day.

Anyway, since the campaign of chips and soft drinks began, I’ve noticed two developments:  1) The gardeners have been coming more often (three times a week, though I’m sure I’m paying only for once a week) and 2) the team for our small, low-maintenance garden has been upped from two to three men.

Yesterday, as I bustled out of the front door with three cans of Lilt and three bags of Bugles in my arms, DH shook his head.

“Watch out,” he said. “Before you know it, you’ll be offering dim sum and a selection of dips.”

Silent Sunday: The “look-at-me” bloke

I think we all know men like that. Peacocks roam freely outside Zabeel Palace, home of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai. Pic courtesy of my lovely friend A, who tries not to run them over on her way to work each day.

Leaving, on a jet plane

One of the nice things about travelling to Malaysia from Dubai with small children is the time difference. With Malaysia being four hours ahead of Dubai, it’s possible to keep the children almost on Dubai-time and cadge yourself some spectacular lie-ins in the process. 

I’m leaving – on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again… a 15-year love affair with Dubai but the memory still makes me cry

Put the kids to bed at 10pm local-time (6pm Dubai time), and they’ll sleep till it least 9am – if you go to bed at 11pm, that means an almost unheard-of 10-hour sleep.

Talk about bliss with bells on.

(Plus minimal kiddie jetlag when you come back to Dubai – what a bonus!)

Anyway, this time schedule meant that the children were able – for the first time ever, as I’m very strict about bedtimes – to accompany us out to dinner in restaurants every night of our holiday. Actually, I’m not sure if that’s a blessing, but…

It was quite an experience for them, especially for aspiring popstrel DD, who was blown away by the idea of having a chap perform live music to us every night while we ate our dinner (you forget what it’s like to be a kid – you so forget).

Anyway, one night the resident singer was strumming his guitar as he launched into a soulful version of Peter, Paul & Mary’s “I’m leaving, on a jet plane” – DH immediately looked at me over his mountain of chicken satay as he knows the effect the song has on me.

“DD,” I said, keen to teach her some family history. “This is a very special song for me. My best friends – my BFFs – played it for me at my leaving party when daddy and I were leaving London to move to Dubai 15 years ago. I can’t hear it without remembering that night when I said goodbye to my friends.”

DD looked at me. For a minute I thought we had a connection. Then…

“Whaddever,” she said, and turned back to Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Part 200).

Kids, eh.

Too old for leopard-print skinny jeans?

It started with a pair of leopard-print skinny jeans. They’re pretty subtle, and I liked them a lot.

The leopard-print jeans -
mutton-mummy or yummy-mummy?

 

“Seriously?” asked DH, as I took them out of the shopping bag. “For who?”

“For me!” I said.

“Fashion victim,” mouthed DH, returning to SkyNews with a barely perceptible shake of his head. His ideal woman, as far as I can tell, would dress like Audrey Hepburn. Even on the school run.

Anyway, with the words “fashion victim” going round in my head, I started to doubt the jeans. Seriously, my next milestone birthday – although a long way off – will be 50. I’m a mother of two – should I really be wearing leopard-print skinnies? Would I just look like one of those sad mutton-dressed-as-lamb mums I sometimes see at school?  I decided at bedtime to take the jeans back the next day.

But after a fitful sleep, I woke in the morning feeling defiant. I tried them on one more time and I thought they looked fine. They fitted really well – not too low-rise, not too skinny, nice stretch in the fabric – so I decided to keep them.

And, to cement the decision, I wore them to a children’s party that morning. DH’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t say anything. I thought the party would be a good testing ground. But I needn’t have worried about looking like a fashion victim there: One of the mums was in over-the-knee boots, skin-tight jeans, a tight gold sweater and sunglasses – bear in mind that it was 10am on a Friday, inside a shopping mall, at a party for a four-year-old, and it was 30C outside. Honestly? She looked hot: The wrong type of hot.

But I digress. I wanted to see how the jeans went down in mummy-company.

“Mmm,” said my French friend. Well, I wasn’t expecting high praise from a French stylista.

“They look great,” said my friend G, not very enthusiastically. “I know a woman who’s nearly 50 who still wears leopard print.” (I have to add that G is still the young side of 40).

I must have looked crestfallen. “And she looks amazing!” added G, eagerly. Too little, too late, as they say. But I decided that I still liked the jeans. Even if I am now mutton-mummy.

And then DD arrived with DH and she, my little fashionista-in-training, she said:

“Wow, mummy! Nice jeans! They’re very flatteNing!”

Well, I suppose that’s something. At least she didn’t say “fattening.”