Mushrooms and Moles

Gosh, well how do you follow up the blog post that went viral? Carefully, I assume*. I’d like to start by saying thank you to everyone that shared ‘Welcome, newbies‘ on Facebook last week, and a big hello to the new readers out there. I hope I do you proud. Or at the very least entertain you. It’s lovely to have so many people enjoying what I’m writing, it means a lot to an attention seeking ego maniac like myself.

So, while we’re having this virtual group hug, I’d like to indulge in a small moment of over-sharing:

I have fungus growing on my cleavage.

Apparently, according to the dermatologist (who has now been added to my general entourage of hairdresser, colourist, manicurist, pedicurist, doctor, OBGYN, dentist, personal trainer and anyone else that keeps me looking good, feeling good, or generally alive), it’s pretty common out here in desertville. She had one case in fourteen years working in Wales and sees about four a week in Dubai. The good news is the fungus lives on all of us, on our skin (so I’m not alone, or utterly gross), but when you get a little sweaty, it grows and forms pretty little rings which, if you’re paranoid about the time you got so sunburnt you couldn’t dress for three days and then your skin blistered and peeled away in a whole sheet (okay that’s a little gross), you might think were something more serious. They aren’t. They’re fungus, and with a little cream twice a day it will be gone within a couple of weeks. Crisis over. I just have to learn to stop sweating in forty degree heat.

While I was at the dermatologist parting with DHS 1000 of BUPAs money just to be told I was growing mushrooms on my torso, she asked if there was anything else I wanted to know. Well talk about kid in a candy store. I’d turned 39 three days previous and the only reason I don’t look wrinkly is because of all the fat I gained stuffing my face over the summer.

I thought of the youthful looking woman I’d seen in reception. I noted the doctor’s plumped cheeks and smoothed brow. I looked around the room at all the photos of perfect dewy-faced women, with no bags under their eyes, no blemishes on their skin, and not a wrinkle to be seen. It all looked so tempting. I may have dribbled a bit.

‘Can you get rid of the mole on my nose?’ I asked. It’s not a moley mole, it’s skin coloured and sits in the dimple above my nostril. You can barely see it and it doesn’t particularly bother me, but I thought I’d start with something small and see what she said.

‘Not without a scar’, she replied. Hmmph. That wasn’t the answer I’d hoped for. But then something amazing happened.

‘You have such lovely skin for your age,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t do anything at the moment.’

The Dermatologist instantly became my new best friend.

‘But we can whip off that mole on your back when you come back for your check up. It should only take about 15 minutes.’

I ummed and ahhed while she explained that they would send it to a lab to be checked and although she was sure it was fine it might become bothersome in the future. And so, like the thousands of women before me who are approaching forty and feel in need of a little ‘help’, I have agreed to my first cosmetic procedure.

On my back.

I don’t think I’ve quite got the hang of this yet.

*To hell with that, let’s start with fungus.

Welcome, newbies

September: I crawl down the road behind the shiny new no-dents-in-the-doors 4×4 that carefully weaves its way across the three lanes of traffic using – OMG – INDICATORS to change lanes, and catch the driver’s eye as she ‘Mirror, signal, manoeuvres’ her way into the slip road to Spinney’s. She parks – within the lines – and nudges her door open so as not to disturb the car parked so precariously close to hers, before grabbing her recyclable reusable hessian bag collection from the passenger seat and encouraging her kids to make their way to the store. Once safely inside, she tucks her non-designer sunglasses into her non-designer handbag and consults her list. She spends hours wondering where the organic section is before realising there isn’t one, and does the same for ready-meals. She checks over her shoulders before she enters the ‘Pork for Non-Muslims’ section, even thought she’s perfectly entitled to be there, and hides the sausages and bacon under the rest of her shopping to avoid being detected by the Pig Detectives who haunt every supermarket checking passports for illicit pork consumption. (Okay, don’t panic: I made that bit up). She reaches the checkout and juggles her screeching kids, loading the conveyor belt at one end and packing her shopping at the other, whilst the jaded long-time expat behind her (possibly me) wonders why a) she didn’t let someone else pack the bags, b) why she didn’t leave her kids at home with the maid and c) how many weeks it will be before she leaves the hessian bags in the car and can’t be bothered to go back for them.

Ah yes, it’s September; the birth of a new generation of expats. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, wondering if it’s always this hot (yes, quite a lot of the time – and sometimes its hotter) and if people really do leave their kids with the maid in order to get their grocery shopping done faster (yes) – in fact they will wonder why everyone seems to have a maid and if it’s weird having someone live in your house who cooks, cleans and babysits on demand (yes, it is, until it isn’t, and then it’s just genius). They will no doubt stare aghast at the fashion parade that is the school run, shiver with horror at the cost of birthday parties for an entire classroom of over-priviledged children and wonder if manicures and pedicures are absolutely necessary on a fortnightly basis (again, you’d be surprised). They will join PTA and attend coffee mornings and zumba classes and slowly build a life along with the hundreds of other women going through exactly the same thing. One day soon they might meet me, and ask the standard question, and my answer will be ‘eight years’. They will raise an eyebrow, comment that they can’t possibly imagine being here that long, and they are only here for a couple of years. I will smile, and say ‘that’s what I said’. They will think they know better. But before they even know it, they will find themselves in a three year old car with paint chipped off the doors, skating through slow traffic at warp speed to make a nail appointment and swearing at the woman in her new 4×4 who is actually slowing down at speed humps. And then, newbie, you will know you have truly arrived in Dubai. Welcome. Have fun. Embrace it. And get your nails done.

The Inbetween

So we have just arrived home from a glorious 11 days in Tuscany, back to Dubai, Ramadan, blistering 45 degree heat and school holidays. Let me tell you, there is no greater shock to the system. I knew it was coming: on our final day we stumbled across the beautiful village of Montepulciano and sat in the sunshine eating lunch and sipping on a fine glass of vino, when from a shady corner a saxophone quartet burst into life, playing Carmen and Debussy amongst others. It literally bought tears to my eyes halfway through my Caprese when I realised it doesn’t matter how much we make the most of where we live, beautiful moments like this will never, ever happen here. We left Montepulciano and arrived at our hotel to find another mini music concert being set up for the evening, entitled ‘Love and Roses’. It was suitably corny – bongo drums and guitars accompanied italian-accented versions of Stevie Wonder and Judy Garland, and a couple of sopranos attempted the British Airways theme tune – but again, not exactly something you’d see pop up in the Madinat any time soon. Sigh.

We are pasta fat-tastic too, after gorging on all the fresh ham, cheese and vegetables we could lay our hands on. We drank our own bodyweights in Chianti. And of course, all this in the company of our family, playing volleyball in the pool, enjoying the sculptures littering the gardens of our villa and wandering through the great cities of Florence and Sienna. It was heaven, a tonic to the past month or so which has been hectic and stressful in any number of different ways.

But now we’re back. And Dubai, by contrast, is horrific. The traffic is awful, our friends are all gone and the air is heavy with heat and sand. This week reminds me an awful lot of the Summer That Shall Not Be Named, when I was eight months pregnant and stranded here in splendid isolation. Except I have a near-four year old now to occupy and a hell of a lot of writing to get done, and as it’s Ramadan I’m completely without daytime trips to coffee shops and lunches which is making things drag a little, to put it mildly. But unlike the Summer That Shall Not Be Named, I get to escape again in less than a week, to England’s green and pleasant land. And I don’t care if there is a heatwave or perpetual rain when I arrive, I will have another wonderful month of music, flowers, food, friends and family to soak up before we return.

You know you’ve lived in Dubai too long when…

Several people ‘shared’ this link on Facebook this week, about the fifteen signs you’ve lived in Qatar too long. Several of them could easily apply to Dubai and a few of them could probably apply to many expat experiences, but just for the sheer hell of it, and to celebrate the seven year mark, which we reached sometime last week, I thought I would do my own list, most of which I can honestly say has happened since then.

You know you’ve lived in Dubai too long when:

1. You are intimate with the footprint of Mall of the Emirates to the point where, if a shop closes for renovation, you will trawl backwards and forwards for twenty minutes thinking you must have lost your mind completely to be making such a rookie error in not locating it instantaneously.

2. You completely miss your turning off the motorway because you are still navigating your way to Dubai Media city by sighting of the now-demolished Hard Rock Cafe.

3. Your three year old insists on using an umbrella to shield him from the six drops of rainfall at school drop off, and you are inclined to agree with him.

4. It’s 40 degrees outside and you haven’t put the air con on in the house yet

5. You can’t remember what a Marks and Spencer ready meal looks like, but you do know you miss them

6. You’ve stopped tracking the exchange rate, and converting dirhams to pounds/dollars is only used in case of emergency when the dirham figure sounds too scary, e.g. hotel reservations, school fees, shoes.

7. It’s been two weeks since your last mani/pedi and you are actually, truly distressed by the state of your feet and hands.

8. Your three year old asks you what you are doing with the maid’s things when you get the ironing board out. Then asks what the iron is.

9. You are not surprised when the first item on the news is not the Boston marathon bombers, or an earthquake in China, but a sales report on the latest high rise development in Old Town.

10. You are not surprised by anything very much.

11. Moaning about the quality of driving is what other people do while you sip a latte and thinking about trading in the car for a faster one.

12. When the following things are exciting: Fresh vegetables like kale, which you haven’t seen in nearly a decade; the opening of interchanges that have taken four years to complete; summer clothes arriving in the shops before Easter.

13. When the following things are not exciting: Fountains, Afternoon tea, Barasti, fast cars, Dhow cruises, suntanning, gold anything.

14. You don’t think it’s weird you haven’t been to a liquor store to buy a bottle of wine since 2006. You don’t think it’s weird that you can’t without your passport, a license and a letter from your husband saying it’s okay.

15. ‘Fresh air’ is described as anything below 30 degrees that doesn’t smell sulphurous or contain 95% sand.

Former Hard Rock Cafe Dubai - demolition

What did you do with my signpost? (Photo credit: Danny McL)

Friends and farewells

I’ve been really lucky in the past seven years. Whilst I’ve said goodbye to a few people here and there, friends have tended to drift in and out of my life as circumstances have changed, rather than be ripped from my side and onto a plane, never to be seen again. However, my time has come. This week sees me saying farewell to my oldest (okay, second oldest) and best friend in Dubai, and I am so very, very sad to see her go after so many shared years.

Good friends – really good friends, that know you and understand you and are committed to you – are hard to come by in expatland. That’s not to say she’s been consistently brilliant – sometimes she’s been downright lousy lol… But like friends anywhere, that’s not always the thing that matters. Our friendship is about our similarities, our personalities, who we are, who we have grown into. Our shared love of laughter and honesty and housewifery skills bordering on Stepford territory. Our tendency to bury our head in the sand and close up the doors in times of personal crisis instead of asking for help or support. Our mutual experience of arriving in Dubai and making it our home. The importance, above all else, of our children.

I suppose I’ll have to drink the damn thing by myself now… (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I admire my friend and am proud of the woman she has grown into during the time we have known eachother. She has made wonderful friends and a beautiful home and ‘kept it real’ for her children, who are the least expat brat-like kids you will ever meet. Her Dubai journey is a different one from mine, but no less arduous. Despite the many things that have shaped her in the past seven years, in many ways she leaves as she arrived – a willowy, determined, vivacious woman who can’t take her liquor. She has never deviated from her Aussie down-to-earth no-BS attitude and is always the person who will make me laugh, make me feel comfortable, make me feel loved.

We were talking a few weeks ago about leaving (trying not to cry) and the thing she fears most about going home is not fitting in. Ironically the very thing we feared when we arrived in Dubai. Only I think going ‘home’ is worse, because as much as we haven’t changed, there are ways in which we have, irreversibly, far more than we realise at the time. I can see the attraction now, of moving ‘on’ rather than ‘back’. We are simply not the same as when we left and it’s hard to start over in a place where your brain tells you, you shouldn’t have to. Things are the same, yet different. We have seen and done things our family, friends and neighbours will never see, and we have done it alone, often without their support or guidance. We have coped with stress of being away from all that is loved and familiar, beyond the realms of many people’s imagination. As someone with childhood friends who have inexplicably ended up scattered to the four corners of the earth at one time or another, I can say with some confidence that expats the world over share this common experience, this perilous journey; to have to make your home somewhere else in the world, and then go home again. (Or not… It is never an easy or obvious choice.)

My friend will leave for Brisbane next week. And I will eventually leave for London. Of course we always knew it would happen and have often joked about who would manage to get out of here first. The chances of us seeing each other again are slim, although I hope that we will. If we do, it will be different again. Our lives will move on and we will make new friends in our new homes and reacquaint with old ones and we will use these new relationships to cope with the struggle to reintegrate. But no-one can replace the good friends you make as an expat, which is what makes returning home so daunting – on that side of the journey, they won’t be there to meet, or make friends with. And often, other expats are the only ones who ‘get it’ – who understand just what you are feeling – on the way in, while you are there, and, I’m pretty certain, on the way out as well.

So I can only wish for her what I wish for myself one day: that the landing will be soft, and that one day in the not too distant future she happens to meet a friend of a friend who suggests a glass of wine in a local bar; they talk and laugh and the company feels like putting on a pair of old shoes – familiar and comfortable. She once wrote me a card which said “you made it ‘home’ for me”. Well ditto, my lovely friend. It won’t be the same without you. x

Flowers and Whistles

It’s always good to read what other Dubai bloggers are up to. For one, it helps me appreciate I am not the only one out there going slowly la-la, increasingly reliant on shoe shopping and sauv blanc to cure the ails of everyday expat living/parenting. Secondly, it gives me all kinds of ideas of things to do and places to go, that I didn’t even know existed. And better still, what can be struck off the ‘to do’ list because it’s crap/expensive/hot/busy. So when my pal over at Circles in the Sand wrote about a new horticultural extravaganza that had opened up just down the road from us, I decided to give it a try. Armed with a bottle of water and enough antihistamine tablets to cure an elephant of hay fever, my son and I and our friends set out this afternoon for the self-proclaimed “most beautiful and biggest natural flower garden in the world”.

Like this, but more (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sounds dubious? Well it’s very pretty. And big. It feels like you are standing in the world’s largest hanging basket. There are pyramids, birds, heart shaped archways, and even a set of flower power painted cars, all full to the brim with flowers of every colour. Sustainable? Well, the developer claims the huge site is using waste water to keep the gazillion petunias flowering. But natural? In Dubai?

Natural or not, the ‘Miracle gardens’ were, indeed, miraculous. If slightly incongruous. Like a giant ski slope protruding into the sky, or a huge offshore development built into the shape of a palm tree, a massive garden of flowers is one of the last things you expect to see on the side of a motorway in the desert.

But miracles come at a price. Dhs 40, to be exact (they charged my 3 year old full price to enter). And honestly…the experience was average. Maybe if our kids hadn’t been swiped by over-enthusiastic filipinos and used as props for photo calls, or had a whistle blown at them near- continuously by the rather protective security men, I would feel differently. One particularly enthusiastic guard saw the kids coming and proceed to stalk us, literally manhandling the boys off the grass and picking up long dead plants and shaking them at us, motioning that our children were ripping them up. Now, our kids are good kids, and they knew not to pick the flowers or run through the beds – but it’s a field full of flowers. If there is an opportunity to climb, or run, or play ‘driving’ on the grass that runs between displays, they are going to take it. What they don’t do is rip plants from the ground. It was all a bit OTT for a few limp looking petunias.

After we lost the nazi gardener at the floral pyramids/Tele tubby caves, we decided to finish up and nipped to the snack tent to feed the boys ice cream. We hoped this would distract them from running around any more, which I thought should have been the point of all that open space. It didn’t. They ran around the tables and chairs instead. A learning moment might be that a few more bits of miraculous grassy areas wouldn’t go amiss, and neither would a play area for the little ones if they want to keep the beds free from wandering feet.

All in all, it was a pleasant hour spent herding small children away from the very things we had come to look at. The kids enjoyed it though and the ice cream was a welcome respite at the end. Would I go again? Maybe, if they add some more facilities and put some signs up that tell you what the rules are instead of blowing whistles at me. As for the big claim made by it’s name – well, for my money, the miracle will be keeping it all alive through the summer.

A little ‘me’ time

Firstly, apologies for the radio silence. Things have been a little hectic due to visiting relatives, theatre performances and the small matter of a 4000 word short story to write for my degree portfolio. Not to mention the PTA obligations, Sports day, International day, and the various overseas train smashes concerning future schools, renting houses and sick family to manage. Blogging has been beyond what time has allowed. And so when it came to dress making, I figured it was time to outsource.

I have a perfectly good sewing machine at home, I just have no inclination to do anything more complicated than table runners and cushion covers. On the tourist trail to Bur Dubai a few weeks back, I came across a particularly spectacular bolt of patterned silk (well they said it was silk) for a mere £7/m in the fabric souk, and decided to get a jump suit copied I’ve been wearing almost non stop since I bought it nearly three years ago. For Dhs 250 (about £40) I will have a brand new swishy silk pantsuit to play in, made to measure and cheaper than the original one. Tick in the box for supporting the ‘local’ (chinese) economy while I’m at it.

Having visitors, especially first time ones, often opens my eyes back up to what’s around and gets me out of my self imposed local living rut. Going down to the creek always reminds me where we are, that we aren’t just in this little bubble, that there is a lot of other real life to see out there. Of course it’s full of touts trying to sell me pashminas and boat rides but if you get past that you can really enjoy just being part of the city, haggling for fabric and riding the abra alongside every other creed and colour who is crossing the creek for one purpose or another.

Somewhere lurking near the opposite end of the expat spectrum, during my blog hiatus I was also part of Dubai’s first Short+Sweet theatre festival. A great initiative to encourage local people to write, direct and act in a series of 10 minute plays, it was a spectacle of good, sometimes great, and some downright awful entertainment, but it was ours. Five years ago or so there is no way the city could have even conceived of hosting a festival like this, and it is really exciting to be contributing to the arts scene and (hopefully) changing it for the better. This weekend was spent performing and at and participating in the Emirates Literature festival, another fantastic example of how much things have moved on in the past few years.

And so that’s the end of my excuses; why the dog ate my homework etc. I now have three glorious weeks of relative relaxation, or two weeks of holiday and a ‘reading week’ as its called in university circles. I’m looking forward to it: gym, spa, vacation in the desert, and maybe even a trip to my beloved but much neglected mall. The year has certainly got off to an intensive start but it’s been incredibly satisfying too. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so full of ideas and optimism for the time ahead.

It’s also fair to say I’m knackered. Pass the wine someone…

All the drama in 10 minutes (gulfnews.com)

Here comes the rain again

The first rain of the year in Dubai, everyone gets incredibly excited. The second time, they all complain about it bitterly. This time the rain is accompanied by cold (by cold I mean below 20C/68F) and so the winter woolies have been broken out, along with umbrellas and raincoats.

Of course in our house the winter woolies are all stacked in a neat pile waiting to be put in suitcases. This is most likely going to be my last post this side of the big man coming, because in three days we fly to the UK and are staying in a field somewhere between the end of the world and the Dark Ages, with no internet or wireless to be found for a clear three miles in any direction. I’m not sure how we are going to cope with this as a family, what with my husband’s blackberry being nicknamed ‘the other wife’ for a few years now, my iphone permanently welded to my hand and my son assuming control of the ipad to the point he knows how to work it better than we do. However, I’m sure we will find a way to manage. Frequent visits to my mother’s house is probably the key.

Anyway, back to the winter woolies. It’s that time of year, when I open up the cold weather wardrobe and assess what is there and discover that I’m staring at decade-old clothing from top shop that I used to wear to the office, intermingled with a few dodgy 50% off jumpers I’ve purchased in the January sales in Dubai over the years. It makes for a sorry collection of clothing but up until now I have refused to spend the money on buying myself stuff for what amounts to two weeks of wear per twelve months of life. I spend a ridiculous amount of money as it is buying new for my son every year, with the intention of selling it off to recoup some of the costs when we return and finding that of course, this being Dubai, no-one wants second hand clothes unless they are free. So the thought of buying for myself has always seemed even more extravagant when I have been able to get away with what I have for so many years.

But this year, I gazed at the pitiful collection and decided I needed to add to it. Trouble is, I have lost my sense of winter style. I have no idea what’s in fashion, or more to the point what isn’t – because most of the year there is no reason to pay attention. It’s hard to shop wooly jumpers and long sleeved dresses when it’s 80 in the shade. It’s hard to imagine how you will be cold enough to require a coat, or even to try one on when you are sweating buckets. My ‘nod’ to winter is getting my nails painted in a berry colour instead of their usual coral or red. Taking off flip flops to try on a pair of fleecy lined boots for size it’s just very difficult to imagine I will ever have cold enough feet to worry about fitting thick socks in them as well.

wallpapers wallpaper christmas sweater sexy nina

This? (Photo credit: 黎湯姆)

I have forgotten how to be cold. I can’t remember how I should cope with party shoes and pantyhose: if I have open toed shoes should I go bare legged and risk pneumonia, or should I get a new pair of shoes that are closed in so I can cover up? (I got new shoes, obviously). Do I wear a coat in the car or take it off so I don’t boil when the heating kicks in? Do pub and restaurants provide extra pashminas for you to pop on if you get chilly? (I suspect this is a Dubai thing). Is it skinny, straight, boot cut or flare this year? Are there any such things as pyjamas that keep you warm and don’t make you look like your Gran? Why are all jumpers hand wash dry flat when you wear them during the worst time of year to get things dry? Is is acceptable to wear jumpers more than once on this basis, as long as they don’t smell of bacon? When do you wear welly boots? Is it every time there is rain or just when it floods? I’m sure I didn’t own wellies for about a decade until we went to Hong Kong to visit my sister, so therefore, Glastonbury excepted, are wellies a middle aged thing rather than a fashion thing in England, and should I not be wearing them at all? How do you wear gloves and not get your rings caught up in them?

Or this? (Photo credit: Sappymoosetree)

There are other, less fashion oriented questions I now ask myself before we leave. Exactly how much moisturiser do I need to wear in order to stop my face and body drying up like some ancient reptile from the cold/wind/central heating? How environmentally unfriendly is having a bath if you run the shower for half an hour anyway because you don’t want to get out? Why has no-one invented a car that de-ices itself? Why do all pubs with working fireplaces feel cold? Is there any way to get my feet thawed out, ever? Why am I in the cold instead of in the sunshine?

But today, we have rain. Dubai has provided me with a sort of purgatory, a place of transition to sit and get comfortable with the concept of dark days, bad traffic and a chill in the air before we travel to the real, slightly more hardcore version on Thursday. So as much as everyone else may be moaning, I am embracing it.

Should I not get chance to write again, I’d like to wish everyone reading safe travels if you are travelling, and a very merry Christmas. I’ve increased my readership by a fairly wild amount this year and for that I am very grateful and not a tiny bit flattered, that my ramblings are still providing entertainment (and maybe a bit of education?). I have certainly enjoyed sharing them with you. I hope that 2013 will find you happy to keep reading and wish you all the very best for the new year. Over and out.

Rubyslippers x

Lucky indeed…

(Photo credit: morberg)

Seven years ago this weekend, we landed in Dubai for the first time, for my husband’s interview with the company that would move us here and change our lives forever.

SEVEN YEARS AGO. I apologise for sounding incredibly middle-aged, but where the hell did that go?

I was barely in my 30s, not even married, and now I’m staring at 40 and have a three year old son.

Despite this only being a ‘temporary’ move, it is the longest we have ever lived in the same house.

I have friends I made here who I have known for longer than a lot of people’s marriages last.

Our marriage has lasted.

I have missed seven years of reality TV, politics and celebrity gossip. I have no hope of ever catching up with it all and feel rather fortunate about it.

I have not been inside an office for seven years.

I panic at the thought of having to walk about in cold weather.

Actually, I panic at the thought of having to walk anywhere.

There are people I have not seen in seven years and yet I’m still surprised when I see them on Facebook and they look older than they did when I last saw them.

I am seven years older than I was before and yet I’m still surprised when I see myself on Facebook and I look older than I did when I left the UK.

Seven years is a long time, and this year has certainly been the best of them by a country mile, although I optimistically predict that next year will be just as much fun – if not more. But for now I can only conclude that seven is indeed a lucky number, because when I think of all we have enjoyed, experienced and achieved since we first arrived, there is little that I would change. Maybe if you’d have asked me before now, I would have wished we had gone home after three, four, five years. But it took me so long to adjust to being here and to embrace and understand expat life – and motherhood on top of that – that had we moved back while I still wanted to go so desperately, I’m not sure I would have accepted that my life has changed, and that I have changed for the better as a result of all of it.

On this basis, should we return to the UK within the next few years, I can optimistically expect to start enjoying myself again somewhere just shy of 2025.

Keeping up with the Janeses

A friend of mine showed me an hysterical email this week from her son’s new ‘Class Rep’. I am using ‘hysterical’ in both senses of the word, because firstly, the woman who sent it clearly has some major issues, and secondly it made me laugh uncontrollably that someone has worked so hard to conform to a stereotype that they’ve actually gone one further and become one.

The email went something along the lines of being terribly upset at the rest of the mums in the class for not all committing to attend a voluntary social function, insisting that it was insulting to her as organiser and had destroyed the spirit of the team. Despite the fact that the other mums who said they could go are still going, she has refused to attend, in the process alienating herself and making everyone else feel really awkward and slightly incredulous at the childishness of it all. It’s four weeks into the school year and she’s throwing her toys out of the pram and calling people names. I can only imagine what she’ll be like by International Day.

I’m rather thankful that I don’t run into many of these VIMs (Very Important Mothers). We live a relatively small development in Dubai, that appears to have mostly escaped infection, and due to my inability to be socially fully-functional I’ve successfully managed to befriend a total of zero of these horror show alpha-mums during my six years in the city. Even better, my son goes to the local school that no-one has ever heard of and is American curriculum anyway, so I’ve successfully swerved the typical (mainly) Brit-expat-mum nightmare of early morning fashion parades, pushy class reps and competitive parenting – the ‘Jumeirah Janes’, if you will – in favour of a far more laid back approach with mums who just want to create a community without all the pomp and circumstance and designer maxi dresses.

The term ‘Jumeirah Jane’ was coined many years ago, essentially to describe the non-working expat wives and mothers who hung out in coffee shops along Beach Road and relied on each other for support in the days when it really mattered – when it was a small town and people needed each other. I believe they gave themselves the name. It has altered over time from a rather catchy and fun definition into something of a blanket insult to all mildly unpleasant expat wives who don’t work, get their maid to bring up the children, and then bitch about it over coffee. I hate it when people label me as a Jane. Which has been known to happen, although I’d like to think once they get to know me, they see I’m just not committed enough to the cause to be a fully paid up member. But before anyone says ‘I think thou dost protest too much’, I guess I’ll admit I’ve been around long enough in Dubai to have a little bit of Jane rub off on me. But it doesn’t sit with me easily, and when I recognise it in myself I run my head into the nearest wall at high speed so it doesn’t happen again. Jane is the devil’s work, a beast to seduce even the most normal of women into ridiculous behaviour. It is a constant battle to resist the call of the honey highlights, neutral toned designer wardrobe and french manicures and remain with ten slutty-red painted toes planted firmly on the ground.

Anyway, as a bit of fun to stretch the poetic muscles a little, I put together a ditty in honour of the Class Rep who Shall Remain Nameless, because I think she, along with a few other horror stories I have heard of late, has managed to epitomise for me the spirit of the modern-day Jane, and has served as a reminder once more as to why I will never succumb to Janedom – or VIMming for that matter. Enjoy.

I’m Jane, I’m a VIM, and I live in Dubai
My husband’s in oil or construction
I’m blessed with four children, a dog and a maid
And with Harvey Nicks and Bloomies to raid
I don’t have much time for a job I’m afraid
So I simply meet friends for luncheon

I’m Jane, I’m a VIM, and I live in Dubai
I have poker straight yellow hair
My forehead’s been smoothed and my arse has been sucked
My boobs have been lifted, my tummy’s been tucked
I’m regularly sanded and waxed and plucked
To look just like the others, so there.

I’m Jane, I’m a VIM, and I live in Dubai
I’m dressed just a shade less than mutton
My sunglasses perch on my head at all times
My iphone is poised to snap fashion crimes
If you see a white Prado it’s probably mine
(But my K-middy accent is put-on)

I’m Jane, I’m a VIM,and I live in Dubai
In a villa that’s been in ‘Ahlan’
My jewellery collection is big on the bling
No Karama for me, my Birkin’s the real thing
I bake cupcakes and daily I go to the gym
I’m a totally friggin’ perfect woman

I’m Jane, I’m a VIM, and I live in Dubai
I am fabulous, witty and rich
I have friends by the dozen to call on for tea
To play status games with surreptitiously
(I am sure that they secretly want to be me
Even though I am such an old bitch)

I’m Jane, I’m a VIM, and I live in Dubai
My career is to be a good wife
With no credit card limit I cannot complain
My identikit friends keep me reasonably sane
I’ll put up with Dubai ’til we move yet again
To the next tax free bolt hole in life

Where's my ruby slippers?

There's no place like home. Especially if you don't live there.

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