Category Archives: Good days

Summer, summer, summertime

English: Suitcase made with cloth material.

Interesting fact: I searched for an image of a suitcase and all these weird piercings of ladies’ whoopsies came up. Who knew? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve tried really hard not to mention it, but it’s no use…I’M GETTING OUT OF HERE IN THREE DAYS!! The travel logistics are all in place, the social diary is sorted and the countdown has officially begun.

The summer has well and truly kicked in here, the streets are deserted, the heat and humidity are out of control and the only good thing about the fact that EVERYONE has left already is that the supermarket car park is empty and there is no queue for the till.

I started packing on Saturday – this process will take a week to get right in terms of luggage allowance vs. content as I battle with trying to create a capsule wardrobe that will take us from swanky city restaurants in London and New York to the beaches of Cape Ann. Not forgetting of course the potential rain-infested swamp that is my parents’ back garden if Britain continues its currently undefeated claim to the title of ‘Wettest Country in the World’. However, with three days to go and a comprehensive pack list I am confident I will succeed, although no doubt get irritated at what has become an annual cull on the nine pairs of shoes I believe you should be able to get in a suitcase.

Now I just have to get the family on the plane, try not to argue with my husband about anything on the way (here’s a hint: let me make all the decisions and don’t question any of them) and remember to charge the ipad and the portable dvd player so as to distract the little man from the fact I’m making him sit still for seven hours in a flying tin can.

Piece of cake. Happy summer to you all.

Ruby Slippers x

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Pink ticket weekend

So, last week, if you couldn’t tell by my post, included flying back to London to sit in a pub all day with my newly-turned-40 friend without the trappings of husband or toddler in tow. It was the first time I had left my son overnight since he was born, and despite some angst during the first few hours of the flight (which included me having a paranoid Jodie Foster moment and a quick weep in the toilets) I quickly adapted to my short-lived freedom and had an absolutely fantastic weekend.

You don’t realise how much your life becomes at one with motherhood until you don’t have to do it for a few days. Firstly, I was on time for everything. The only time I was late  it wasn’t because I’d had to make a last minute stop at the toilet, or because my son had the wrong shoes on, or didn’t have his preferred book in the car, or just plain didn’t want to go somewhere – it was mainly because I was having too much of a good time at the previous place to leave. Time takes on different dimensions with a child. As does the whole business of travelling around. I marvelled at just how fast I could get from the plane door to south west London with only hand luggage to think about, and zipping from Clapham to Chelsea to Hammersmith in high heels and with only a handbag to carry was the sort of breeze my dreams are usually made of.

Another revelation: I could do what I wanted, when I wanted. I didn’t have to get home in time for pick-up/lunch/dinner/bath/bed, and I didn’t have to think about the fifteen different meals that needed shopping for, preparing and cooking. I just had to decide what to wear (not difficult, see the ‘hand luggage’ mention for details) and leave the house, eat when I was hungry and come back when I was too drunk, too tired, or both. It doesn’t sound much but it’s a massive thing when you are used to always being on the clock. I managed to see more people in 48 hours than I will in 10 days when I next travel to London ‘en famile’.

Which leads me to the third monumental experience I’ve not had in well over three years and couldn’t possibly consider usually: All day drinking. What a revelation that I can still manage a full day in the pub. Admittedly I probably didn’t drink at the same pace as I did a few years back but I was pretty in awe of my constitution and ability to remain coherent, and better still I didn’t have a hangover the next day. That was probably the sensible mummy bit kicking in though. As well as the wine and the vodka there was a fair bit of water consumed. Let’s face it, you can’t erase that petrified feeling of coping hungover with a toddler in a mere two days.

clapham junction railway station sign

Beware of the pigeons

So it’s fair to say I had a fabulous few days, they were well earned and really needed. My son and husband survived without me and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again (although jury’s out on just how often my other half will put up with my absentee parenting). I missed them both immensely of course and the smile I got from my little boy when I saw him on Monday morning lit up my world. But the biggest downside was the most unexpected: waiting for the train at Clapham Junction to take me back to the airport, a pigeon unloaded onto me and my suitcase. Disgusted, I reached into my bag to find a wipe, only to realise that I didn’t have any with me. I used my Sunday Times to get rid of what I could and had to suffer the gross-out factor of bird-poo covered hand for the next hour until I was able to wash at the airport. The motto of this story: even if you should leave your child at home, always remember the wipes.

Desperately seeking…nothing, actually.

My brain is empty of thought. I have no words. I am not sure why this has happened but I think it’s something to do with being over-taxed. Or taxed at all, I should imagine. There are a thousand things I could write about this week, and indeed a fair few I should write about, but I can’t seem to find the right angle.

And then it occurs to me: Could it be, that for the first time in a fairly long while, I am actually busy and stimulated and…OMG…happy???

Happy Tomatos

Some happy tomatoes

There may be some evidence to suggest this is the case:

1. My son has ceased to pee on the floor and has used the toilet without fail for the past 4 days. This is of course his achievement and not mine – but I also feel that finally I might have got something right and his success is testament to my amazing parenting skills and tireless patience rather than his sole ability to transform from baby to boy in just under two weeks because he was ‘ready’. Hence on Friday, while he is presented with the electric piano that he has coveted in ELC for the past three months, I shall be rewarding myself with an hour in a darkened room being pummelled with essential oils, because hell, I earned it.

2. I am busy. Really busy. And not just with boring house ‘to dos’ but actual projects that are fun and engaging and sociable. And man, that feels good. Of course I also have the boring stuff to do but it doesn’t seem so bad when the rest of the time is filled in with things I actually want to be involved in. My husband is being incredibly supportive about me keep zipping off here and there and I am wondering quite a lot why I moped around for so long doing nothing. I tend to think it’s just my time now, to start to spread my wings again, and I can only say how lucky I feel, that I have the support to be able to do that.

3. On that particular subject, I was offered a place on a Master’s degree course to study professional writing this week and I am completely and utterly thrilled about it.

This last point is, of course, me blowing my own trumpet that I am actually good enough at spouting crap for someone to think I could eventually do it for a living. It came as rather a surprise to me but I’m not arguing with their decision. Panicking slightly, but not arguing. As any of my blog followers who have read my earlier posts will know, I have struggled for a long time to find something meaningful to do, to have something to aim for that (hopefully) has income attached to it whilst still being able to enjoy the benefits of being a stay at home mum and cope with the business of Trailing. It is somewhat ironic that I have ended up a writer, having started writing in part to figure out my place in this world. But it feels like the right thing for me, for the future, and I can’t wait to see where it takes me.

So it would appear I have finally found the answer to my career conundrum, got myself a hobby that I love, and have less child-related stress than I have done in months. The only problem is if I stay this happy about it I’ll have absolutely nothing left to write about and if I stay this busy I’ll have no time to write it either.

Dammit. Boredom, loneliness and misery, where art thou?

The Big 5-0-0-0

Well firstly, a big thank you. My blog reached it’s 5,000th hit this weekend, which I have to say, feels like a great achievement. When I started writing, I didn’t have a particular plan in mind but I certainly didn’t think 500 people a month would be reading what I had to say! It is very gratifying that so many people are interested and keep coming back for more of my random ramblings.

The word "sand" written in sand

After all, there's so much to say about living in the desert...

I have had a passion for writing for a long time. In college I wrote poetry for some reason – teenage angst I think – and although I have no doubt it was awful, it started a lifetime habit of expressing myself and my feelings through the written word. I take enormous pleasure in writing. In my twenties I dabbled in fiction but I quickly realised that I find it easier to get creative when I write about reality. For me, sharing my experiences, ideas and opinions and writing them down for someone else to read is just as exhilarating as being up on a stage in front of an audience. Knowing that my blog has attracted and retained a readership that stretches way beyond my nearest and dearest is extremely rewarding.

I have written a lot about where life is taking me. Living in this temporary expat bubble can often feel like marking time. Indeed, if you read my earlier blog entries I have often expressed my opinion that there is little point in starting something if you never know when you will have to finish it and move on. In my time in Dubai I have not only applied this to myself in terms of career but friendships too. I have also, for far too long, held the belief that having a baby has somehow diminished my capacity to achieve. Not only is this complete rubbish (surely raising a child is the biggest achievement of all, for starters!) but it has also been to my detriment, I realise now. I have ambition and have stifled it because I have been too busy wishing my life different. However I’m pleased to report this train of thought is shifting, finally. Through writing this blog I have been able to think a little more clearly about how I might change things for the better in spite of my circumstances, or even because of them. It has helped me to discover how my ambition might shape itself in the future, and for that I am thankful, that I have been able to write my way to a better place.

Keep reading.

I will survive

 

NOTE: Written last Thursday, 19th January.

Oh. My. God. I am going INSANE. Having recovered from the most extraordinary jetlag in the nick of time, my son started back at nursery last week. Three days later I picked him up to find not one, not two, but FIVE children had thrown up in the classroom, and with that I realised that it was only a matter of time before he too succumbed to this stomach virus that seems to be currently storming through Dubai with unrelenting speed, wiping out everyone in it’s path in plague-like proportions.

Last Wednesday night it hit, spectacularly, at 11pm. At 2am, when everything in a 5 mile radius had been stripped clean, twice, and the little man had passed out exhausted, I crawled into bed with him and spent the remaining hours he lay spreadeagled across 75% of it teetering on the edge, unmoving, poised with a bowl and trying to ignore the crippling pain in my hips and back.

After a night of no sleep, what better way to celebrate than with a day of feeling awful. I’m pretty sure I caught the bug but fought it honourably and managed to limit it’s effects to plain old nausea. Of course I was sick with worry of passing it on, which didn’t help, so I cancelled everything and then felt bad about that too, when my son appeared to make a full recovery by Friday morning.

But oh no, this bug is pure evil. It lay dormant for FOUR DAYS before finally rearing it’s head again on Monday, just as I had gotten used to the idea of having my mornings freed up and having just waved my husband off to foreign climes for the week. And since then I have changed approximately 20 nappies per day, washed my hands in so much of that awful dettol soap that they are cracking up, and have had approximately 12 hours sleep in total. I have not left the house except to go out on an emergency nappy buying mission, I have watched the same DVD of the Wiggles at least 7 times (the little man won’t watch anything else right now), and I have not spoken to anyone over the age of 2 for what feels like months.

I am very lonely. A sick child is not just upsetting but completely isolating too. I have relied on the power of Facebook to keep me sane but it hasn’t worked terribly well, I’m just appearing publicly unhinged instead of keeping it to myself. It’s one of those moments in parenting that no-one can explain to you about beforehand, that you wouldn’t understand even if they did. Of course the priority is my child, and I have to say this has been particularly upsetting to watch because it’s the first time he’s been ill and been able to understand and voice what’s happening to him. But I’m terrified of getting it too, and that is almost as bad as watching him suffer, because I know that being sick and having to be mummy at the same time is misery wrapped up in a box with a cherry on top. And finally, the rather more selfish bit of me is going loopy at being stuck in the house with no break and no time to myself, and I want him so badly to get better so that he can go back to school on Sunday that I’m feeling quite ill with guilt, never mind anything else.

But most of all I want to be rescued because this is so hard, and I know full well there is no rescue, it’s called parenting and I just have to get on with it.

 

Sunday 22nd January.

It’s over. My son is well and happy and back at school. My husband is home. I have 101 things to do this morning but wanted to finish this post before the feelings fade away and life goes back to normal again. Why? Because last week, in between the endless nappy changes and the tears, we had a ball. Forced together with no-one else to rescue us and unable to leave the house, we did all sorts of activities that I wouldn’t usually do on a day to day basis – cooking, making dressing up costumes and props, attempting huge floor puzzles, building houses with lego, holding tea parties in tents, making collages, assault courses – you name it, we’ve done it this week. And I can truthfully say I’ve had a lot of fun getting to know my son a little more than I did before as we explored all of this together. Not that I’m a terrible mother the rest of the time – it’s just easy to get complacent and let them play with the same old toys while you try your best to organise the rest of life around them.

I know that there were certainly moments last week I wasn’t proud of and I let the tiredness and the stress get to me on more than one occasion – but for the most part, I feel that both my son and I rose admirably to the challenge and we survived, together as a team. It was one of the best and worst weeks of motherhood to date. And although I’m mighty glad to have a quiet, empty house this morning, to be able to go to the bathroom without company, and to drink a cup of tea in its entirety before it gets stone cold, I kind of miss the little fella.

There’s no business like showbusiness

During the past twelve months it would appear I have woken up from my post-baby coma and remembered that in a previous life, before Dubai took me over, I used to have a hobby – a passion, even. Theatre has been part of my life since I was born – in fact some would argue before that, as courtesy of my mother, I appeared onstage as a can-canning foetus. Through the years I have veered between performing onstage and working behind the scenes. My tweens and teens were spent in several musical theatre companies, one of which gifted me the best friends I still have today. In my early twenties I switched to backstage, graduating in Technical Theatre Arts from drama school and becoming a stage carpenter and stage manager before being gradually lured away to the more lucrative corporate world of conference and events and eventually abandoning theatre altogether. My late twenties saw a musical theatre revival as I once again returned to tread the boards, and I was privileged to perform at such wonderful places as the magical Minack open air theatre in Cornwall. And then we moved to Dubai, and after several failed attempts in the early days to find anything remotely resembling a group of like minded people, I forgot all about it.

After my son turned one and my brain had stopped leaking little grey cells out of my ears, I wanted to find something to do for myself, and theatre once again became part of my life. This time, in the absence of a musical theatre group in Dubai, I turned to straight drama and enrolled in a course to flex my acting muscles for the first time. And I love it. It’s so different from musical theatre, of course, that I can hardly believe it’s related, but all the years of performing and training and watching the professionals at work have obviously sunk in enough that I would appear to be fairly competent at it. Who would have guessed I could be a drama queen? (Cue shock from family and friends).

So, unashamedly, I am plugging the play I am about to appear in, because I am hoping there are a few Dubai readers out there that might be curious enough to come along and watch.
I can wholeheartedly say that it is one of the best things to have happened to me in Dubai, to have met people who are all the same as me in one sense, but so different in others. To mix with men as well as women of all ages in contrast to my usual ‘female aged 30-45′ dominated world. To meet real characters who are interesting and fun to get to know – a little bit oddball and artsy and the kind of people I can feel comfortable around, and truly be myself. To rediscover a love and a talent that was lost and to finally find somewhere I can belong (oddly, given the nature of the beast, without judgement). And it has challenged me – on stage and off – in a way that coffee mornings and gym sessions do not and cannot.

If there are any actual or potential trailing spouses out there reading this, I can only say that finding something to be passionate about could well be the key to being happy and fulfilled away from home. It’s only taken me five and a half flippin’ years to work this out, of course.

Buy a ticket.

A perfect day

Beach shoes

And here it is. The reason why we all come (apart from tax free salaries obviously). The winter has arrived in all it’s glory, and for the next four months we can enjoy endless warm sunny days spent perfecting our tans and eating BBQ food and forgetting entirely why we hate the place so much from June (May? April?) to September.

Today was shared equally between the polo club swimming pool, the garden and the park outside our back gate. My son thinks it’s Christmas, he’s had more fresh air, fun and exercise than in the last six weeks put together. So have I. We are out to dinner tonight and I am actually looking forward to sitting outside sipping a chilled glass of something and letting my hair blow in the breeze, rather than wondering what to wear that will cover up my swollen ankles and show the least amount of sweat.

This particular time of year is precious and short lived, an approximate six week period when the evenings are light enough and warm enough to enjoy a sundowner with my husband whilst we give our son his dinner, and when the days aren’t so scorching hot that you need to seek shade like some demented insect everytime you go outside. Everyone is more social, more relaxed. Visitors flood in and the city takes on a completely different personality as the tourists take over and the rest of us finally realise we can come out of hibernation and start enjoying the outdoors again.

Due to a serious lack of friends and family coming to visit us this year (yes, I am bitter and yes, it was a dig), we are deprived of our usual excuses to hang out in all the touristy places and instead we are in the rather unusual position of being able to please ourselves when it comes to how we spend this wonderful season. And so I am slowly filling our calendar with BBQs and brunches, dinners and drinks, and trips to the desert and the beach in order to make the most of it.

Somewhere in and amongst all of this, we have to find time to celebrate Thanksgiving too, and so rather bizarrely I have spent a few mornings in the past week planning a turkey dinner and buying Fall decorations for the house, which of course seems completely at odds with what the weather is doing. But by Thanksgiving the weather will have changed again. Living in a desert that is so brutally hot for half the year, the assumption is that it won’t get cold, but in actual fact, it can get pretty nippy in the winter. Indeed, by December there will be a chill in the air that, for us natives at least, will make evenings too cold for strappy dresses alone and it will be time to bring a cardie and stick on your Ugg boots to keep yourself warm. (For shame, everyone wears boots as soon as the temperature drops below 70 here, declaring it ‘cold’, although personally I think it has more to do with being completely and utterly bored by the summer clothes we’ve been wearing since March than actually feeling anything remotely resembling cold.)

I don’t know how many more winters we will have in Dubai but it’s time to start enjoying them before we return to winters spent in perpetual darkness in the frozen wastelands of northern Europe. Too many years have rushed by in a haze of visitors, work and babies, and I feel that now is our time to really enjoy it, before it is too late. So here is my winter 2011 manifesto, a list of ways to make the most of our life here and enjoy the great outdoors in the best way Dubai can offer:
I will take the opportunity to relax by the pool for half an hour after my gym session, instead of heading home in a blind panic to the cool of our air conditioning. I will take my son to the beach every weekend until Christmas, a promise I fail to live up to every year but this year I really mean it. I will make the most of the romantic candlelit dinners by the sea with my husband and of dinners with friends in the garden. I will eat out of doors whenever possible even though I have to go through the hassle of lighting up a million torches and candles to ward off mosquitoes and see what the hell it is I’m eating. Having spent my formative years holidaying in France and Spain, and having been known to indulge in the occasional pub garden in the UK, it feels distinctly odd even after six winters here to have to enjoy all this warm weather in the dark, but I will dine outside every night I am able until it is too cold to feel my toes. I will spend time with my family and take the simple pleasure of watching my son giggling non-stop as my husband runs around with him.

In short, I will feel the joy that Dubai tends to strip away simply by being hotter than hell for half the year, and when I get on a plane at Christmas I will bring that joy along with my suntan. I will let the cold English countryside sting my eyes and ears and I will don my hat and gloves to make snowmen in Salem, and know that if I try hard enough, I really can have the best of both worlds.

Apple for the teacher

Apple Closeup

Image via Wikipedia

I have something to celebrate. I’ve been at work the past two weeks. Yes, you read right – work! But don’t be fooled…I am not celebrating because I spent two weeks being useful and being paid; but because it’s over, after possibly the longest fortnight I’ve ever lived through.

My son’s nursery school accidentally lost a teacher just before the start of the school year, replaced her, and then carelessly lost another one (through no fault of their own, I might add). I had rather stupidly offered to help out in the case of an emergency when the first one was mislaid, and two days before the start of term I assumed as I hadn’t heard from them that I was off the hook. Just as I was tucking into my “I’m a hero for offering but guess you found someone” email, I had a message float into my inbox with details of my starting date, pay package and a class list. What could possibly be worse than being stuck at home with only a 2-year old for company? I’ll tell you: being stuck in a room with 16 of the little dears for five mornings a week after a 3-month hiatus for them and a great big two and a half year break for me.

I don’t know how I ever did this job full time. Maybe once I had ‘the calling’ and maybe I will again, when I’ve had a bit more sleep. But now I find it impossible to imagine getting through a full school year without losing the plot completely. It’s no wonder teachers are by and large a bit of a strange breed. It could drive you mad if you let it. Of course experience tells me that if you don’t actually have a child of the same age you are teaching, it’s slightly more bearable, but for the ‘today’ me it was at best logistically difficult and at worst emotionally and physically exhausting.

Of course I picked the worst two weeks of the year. Orientation in a nursery school is one of the most harrowing experiences you can go through, for pretty much everybody concerned. Tots howling for their mummies (and in a few cases, for the nanny – that’s Dubai, folks). Mummies – ah, the mummies – staring in horror at children screaming at the door, on the floor – well, anywhere they can find really – then lingering too long and asking really helpful questions such as ‘when will they all stop crying?’ (answer: when you stop trying to figure out if I’m really as qualified as I say I am and let me get back to my job).
More Mummies upset in the hallways as they tear themselves away from their traumatised offspring, converting their guilt to resentment at  the obvious incompetence of the staff who have only just met them and are expected to be an instantly accepted primary carer replacement. (Note: a qualification in Early years teaching does not mean your child is going to like me in the first 30 seconds of meeting me, nor will they thank you for leaving them with me having spent nearly three months in your company, just because you suggested they stay and play with me for a while.)
And yet more Mummies, questioning why the teachers haven’t been genetically modified to have a few extra sets of arms so that all the crying children can be comforted at the same time as taking one of them to the bathroom and breaking up a fight over a book in the reading corner. A token Daddy in a suit, who stands in the doorway feeling increasingly uncomfortable in this sea of emotional wretchedness and resolves to make sure his wife does the drop off from now on and bugger her job/yoga/coffee morning. And finally -last and most definitely least – the lowly teachers, the suckers in this whole human separation experiment, who are wondering (not for the first time) what on earth it was that inspired them to teach in the first place. Because it sure as hell wasn’t orientation week.

My heart was plucked from its natural resting place on Day 1 when I left my own howling two year old behind and ran straight to a classful of the same. I spent all morning wondering how my little one was doing in comparison to the ones I was looking after and was so worried I nearly burst into tears on several occasions. It was awful, because I couldn’t call in to find out, I couldn’t pick him up a bit early to ease him in – I couldn’t do anything except just keep dropping him off early and picking him up late, feel horribly guilty and upset and then crush my own feelings into a small place where no-one could find them and deal with everyone else’s. It didn’t improve for a good three or four days, until finally, on Day 5, my wonderful little man looked up at me with a wobbly bottom lip and said “Mummy’s brave boy. Kiss. Bye bye mummy.” He gave me his shoes and wandered off to the playdough table and that was that.  With a huge sigh of relief that he had finally accepted his fate, I turned my attention to myself, and the fact that for a week I had been peed on, thrown up over, had my sweater repeatedly used as a handkerchief, used the phrase ‘sit down and cross your legs’ about 497 times, lost my voice from talking and singing non-stop over unreasonable decibels of crying, had had no tea break, lunch break, toilet break or child break for 12 hours, five days straight, missed having quality time with my son so much it hurt – and came to the conclusion that I was absolutely, unbelievably, irreversibly broken.

Then I had two days off and did it all again.

I read a really ignorant comment from a mother on a local website here which claimed nursery was merely “playtime for toddlers” and how difficult could it be? Well lady, YOU try it. It’s really, really tough. I once again take my hat off to the teachers that do it day in, day out. It might come with short hours and long holidays but the actual work part of the day is harder than anything else I’ve ever known. 60 hours a week of sitting in front of a PC and having meetings and lunches and making a few difficult phone calls to clients/suppliers/whoever is a walk in the park in comparison. And to all of the teachers out there, I wish you luck and love and motivation to keep going, because you are amazing people who are under-appreciated by so many, yet entrusted with our most sacred of possessions.

And as for me? Well my sacred possession is no doubt currently occupied doing finger painting or water play or whatever, and I am back to civilian life. I have already started the long process of getting on with the ‘to do’ list that has been lingering since we returned to Dubai nearly a month ago, stalling slightly while I write this, it’s true, but I’m getting to it. I feel like September got lost in the mail, and I’m heartily glad for a change to be doing absolutely nothing with my life while I try and sort it out a bit. Going to work has made me appreciate not going, for once. And I plan to make the most of it while it lasts.