Category Archives: It’s all about me

Age is just a number

I am getting older.

Old bottles of wine aging by candle light

Just like a fine wine, I get better with age, particularly in candlelight (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t actually mind. I used to – when I was younger, and forty seemed like the end of the world, but now I really don’t mind that much that it’s just a couple of years away. I like me now. I look better, feel better, and am fitter than I ever was ten years ago. I’m a nicer person. I’m wiser. And if not happier then certainly more content, more easy going, and more forgiving. (Which makes me one scary bitch a decade or so back). But the fact that I don’t mind getting older doesn’t necessarily mean I am willing to accept the various reminders from the people around me, from advertisers, manufacturers, and in particular the people I pay to perform various services on my body. There is absolutely no need for them to keep pointing out the obvious to me AT. ALL. And certainly not as frequently as they seem to be currently enjoying. Maybe I don’t help things along because I’ve stopped lying about my age. Maybe it’s time to start again before it’s too late and all these people manage to convince me I am actually getting on a bit…anyway, here are my top ten ‘Old Person In The Making’ moments of the past month. I defy anyone to not feel their age after this sort of abuse…

1. I was offered ‘botox for hair’ at my salon the other day because ‘its good for when your hair gets older and over treated’. It didn’t occur to me for one minute to say no or consider this a ridiculous and unnecessary procedure. My hair certainly looks more vibrant and shiny but I fear it is now devoid of expression when I smile.

2. When I went for a facial, the therapist politely suggested the anti-ageing one.

3. I was recommended a bra by a saleswoman that said something along the lines of ‘make your breasts look 10 years younger!’ on the label. Rather insultingly she was right, and in her defence I now sport fantastic looking boobs. I’m still not sure I’m happy about it though.

4. I got called ‘a mature woman’ by my 25 year old guy-pal on a night out. He compared me to Demi Moore – who is approximately ten years older than me. (This is not all bad either. It could have been Melanie Griffiths)

5. I was suckered into buying hideously expensive skin cream and now can’t stop buying it even when I know full well it will not halt the passage of time marching across my face. Yet still I can’t go back to using the cheaper stuff just in case.

6. In my mind, I am perfectly able to perform basic physical skills such as forward rolls, skipping and limbo, but in reality when challenged to do so it is quite difficult and can really bloody hurt.

7. My OBGYN told me that I had done very well ‘at my age’ to keep off the weight and maintain my figure.

8. She also told me if I did want any more babies to get a move on as my eggs were nearly past it.

9. I won tickets to Sandance and am mainly considering not going because I’m not sure if I can face the taxi queue at the finish. Also I’m not sure I can stay up that late. And I’ve never heard of the bands who are playing. I was a little worried about dancing like an old person too but I’ve been assured I can get away with that one as long as I rest up every other track.

10. My hair colourist suggested I keep going blonde because “if you dye it dark people will think you’re doing it to cover the grey”.

I don’t have any grey hair you bastard, but I went blonde anyway.

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Ode to a Brown Bra

I’m trawling the malls for a new brown bra
Been to seventeen thousand shops so far
I’m not asking for much, just a bra with a tan
But no parachute harness – I’m not a big fan
Upon finding said bra, I will search for my size
And find, yet again, pigs are flying the skies
Is finding a brown bra just not meant to be?
Does EVERYONE in Dubai wear 34D?
There’s the Ultimo, sure, but that isn’t my fate
I don’t want my boobs used for a dinner plate
I just want a bra for all seasons and places
That doesn’t shove bosom in people’s faces
I don’t need strapless, or five-way, or padded
I don’t need patterns or lace to be added
I just want a brown bra, not to fly to the moon
So please, Marks and Spencers, get new stock very soon.

 

*Dedicated to the dancing girls of the BROS 2004 production Singin’ in the Rain

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.

Get over it

It is no secret in our house that I don’t want to live in Dubai forever. In fact I think the blog name I picked out might have given a clue as to my feelings on the subject. However for some reason I feel the need to push it in everyone’s face once in a while, just to make sure they are still listening. Last night was one of those times, and my husband copped the worst of it.

Well…all of it.

Again.

Homesickness

Everyone gets homesick once in a while (Photo credit: Kalexanderson)

My desire to ‘not be here’ has become deep rooted over the course of the last few years. In truth, I don’t think about it on a daily basis and very rarely get homesick anymore, in fact right now I’m having a rather enjoyable and satisfying time of it – but the bottom line, when you scrape all of the other stuff away and get to the heart of the matter, is that I can’t shake the feeling that being here is a huge compromise. It is so engrained in me that I want to go home that occasionally when the mood takes me and I am feeling particularly vulnerable, or dramatic, or both, I cannot see past this to anything else. And because it is not within my control to change the situation I get really foul about the whole subject of when and if it will ever happen.

Grossly unfair of me when I flip out about it and never my finest hour. I wish I could just be okay with being here, like, really okay with it. Or I wish that I could not be okay with it very quietly and privately, so that other people didn’t have to put up with my childish tantrums and whining, and so that I didn’t use my anger as a weapon of mass destruction. But I can’t seem to do either of those things. I think I have parked it, accepted it, and am coping with it, and then I suddenly flare up again and go nuclear, usually at my husband, about the terrible blow life has dealt me because I can’t go home.

Which of course is rubbish and immature and frankly rather silly. There is absolutely nothing to say my life away from Dubai would be any better than the one we enjoy here. I think it’s just – and I’m going to copyright my new term of diagnosis here – ‘Ultimate homesickness’. It’s like an extended remix, years and years of missing out on life at home all rolled into one big ball of emotion that once in a while appears rather suddenly and lashes out at everything in a two mile radius until it is spent.

I talked before about ‘that permanently temporary’ feeling of being an expat. It is here again, and I think it is exaggerated the closer I get to summer, and returning home. It is a particularly sensitive time for me as I plan my days away from here, and realise once again that it is all too short a time to spend with the people I love and miss dearly.  However, faced with the reality of leaving our life here I’m sure I would have very mixed feelings about going. There are parts of living in Dubai that I have accepted, parts I actually like and some things I absolutely love about being here. There is actually very little I don’t like, and it mainly revolves around the uncertainty of how long we are here for, which of course is a ridiculous thing to spend life worrying about. Plan for the future, but live in the here and now, right? So I consider this post a telling-off, to myself, to get with the program and stop being an idiot. Feeling sorry for myself never got me anywhere and neither did going postal on my loved ones. Fortunately, Ultimate homesickness is rare and although brightly burning, it is very short lived. Now, if someone would just invent a vaccination…

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Coz you’re there for me Part twooooo-oooooo

Well I have to say it’s been absolutely ages since I felt genuinely sorry for myself. That, and not wanting to use up my precious writing ideas on my blog when I have two years of a masters degree to fill up, means I’ve been a little mean about my blog posting topics. And this week, despite my best intentions, it will be no different, because yet again I managed to run headlong into the catchphrase that invades my life on a regular basis, entitled “Why can’t we make friends in Dubai?”

Friends

Coffee-shop-tastic: The stuff expat dreams are made of (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have blogged on this subject extensively (so much so that I haven’t provided a link in case I’m repeating myself) and I’m sure there are those of you heartily sick of hearing about it. I’m sick of hearing about it. And I’m not particularly bothered about it any more, if truth be told. But last week, I met a friend of a friend who has only recently arrived in Dubai, and it threw the whole thing back up in my face. The woman in question has been here less than six months and in that time managed to infiltrate a whole collection of my friend’s friends, plus make a whole set of her own. She knows everyone. And their husbands. She is going to birthday parties and camping and Christmas and all manner of things that I must admit, whilst I wouldn’t expect an invite from the friend in question because our friendship hasn’t shaped itself this way, would be nice to get from somebody.

Don’t get me wrong. I have friends, plenty, particularly now that I am involved again in the Dark Arts (otherwise known as theatre). But I seem to have failed dismally on the playdate front, and therefore on the ‘family friends’ side of things too, that means we might actually get invited to camping and boat trips and waterpark outings and other such fun weekend activities.

In the early days, I admit I was fussy. And socially a little awkward. And I didn’t have children which automatically put me at a disadvantage because most other people we met did. But then we did have children. Oops, no we didn’t, we had one child. Singular. Which again puts me in a bit of a situation, because most mummies like their play dates to have a convenient older or younger sibling attached for theirs to play with. And, in all fairness, I like to keep a nice house and refuse to invite my son’s toddler friends over with a hyperactive 5 year old in tow who is going to wreck the furniture and bully the cats because they are bored. But it’s not all my fault, because I have tried to break the ice with mums on several occasions and for some reason it never seems to work. At the soft play area a few weeks back we were sitting having a snack on the table next to a couple of mums from nursery who I see every day and I said hello and introduced myself (just in case they didn’t know who I was after nearly a year of drop offs and pick ups) and you know what? They nodded and then went back to their conversation as if I ceased to exist. The children were all playing together and they just let me sit next to them like a ninny. Why would they do that? It’s two versus one, it’s socially polite for them to ask me to join them, not let me hang there like a nerd at the school disco waiting to be asked to dance.

But this is the story of my life in Dubai. WHAT DID I DO WRONG? Am I such an utter social misfit that I cannot be let loose in public? Do people think I’m a)too weird b)too caustically challenged c)too anally retentive to enjoy breakfast/brunch/beach outings/bbqs/birthday parties/other things beginning with ‘b’? I know my husband charms the pants off most people he ever meets so it can’t be him that’s the problem. Maybe (she dreams) I’m just too attractive or clever or confident for the average person to handle.

Or maybe I just prefer a more organic approach to friendship, and still, after all this time as an expat, can’t be doing with making my life a continuous round of speed-play-dating in order to ‘fit in’. Meeting my friend’s friend (FF?) last week was a little like being on a job interview. She quizzed me about everything, from what I did with my time whilst my son was at nursery (tricky: do I admit to being a gym bunny and indulging in blogging and shopping inbetween house maintenance and supermarket trips or do I try to make myself sound more meaningful?) to what schools I had picked out for him (the wrong one, apparently), to whether I would want my husband to remarry if I died. As I slurped on the second glass of sauv blanc I got the distinct feeling I hadn’t got the job – that I’d been sloppy in my responses, as little too down-to-earth for her liking, and like a teenage boy on their first date, just a bit too eager to be funny.

Thing is, I am funny. And down to earth. And a bit lazy sometimes, when I’m not working my arse off to achieve something for myself or my family. I am a little weird, and caustically challenged, and somewhat anally retentive. But I want people to like me because I’m different, and therefore a little interesting, not because I’m the same. It shouldn’t stop me from going to brunches or meeting for coffee or gathering at the soft play area and yet I don’t seem to have been able to tap into what I have officially dubbed ‘The Coven Concept’ in Dubai at all.

What the hell, I was never a girl’s girl. But in the UK, over the years, I did make friends with a lot of other girls who weren’t girl’s girls either. Sometimes even in groups. On weekends my husband and I did things with other couples and no doubt when we return we will do so again, with all of our children in tow as well. I am not completely incapable of forming friendships and we seem able to have our share of fun with our friends when we see them. But for some reason I never quite nailed it in Dubai, and now I fear it’s too late. The new people coming in are new. They do newbie things and meet other newbie people and their eyebrows shoot to the backs of their heads when you say you’ve been here six years, and they assume you already have people to go camping with and have bbqs with and spend school holidays with hanging out by the pool. To a certain extent they are right to assume we have other things going on. They are in a totally different place to us psychologically and it’s hard to not end up in a weird sort of ‘parenting/public information’ role. For anyone who is not new to Dubai our place in their lives is usually relegated to the occasional dinner rather than a group gathering. On the rare occasions we are invited somewhere we are usually the outsiders in an otherwise well-established group of friends, which isn’t easy to break into either, unless you have balls of steel like my FF of course.

So, I don’t know how she’s done it, but clearly I can’t, or won’t, or don’t need to enough to make it happen. And maybe that’s the point here. We have a nice life, we have a few people we enjoy spending time with, and we have our weekends together to enjoy just the three of us which is precious in its own way. I look forward to a day when we are surrounded by enough friends and family to pick and choose how to spend our time, but if that is not Dubai then so be it. As the great Whitney said, it’s not right, but it’s okay.

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.

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.