Chronicles of a Trailing Spouse...

Christmas is coming and I am still fat.  In spite of my best efforts, there is still too much of me and those slinky numbers which hang, corpse-like, in my wardrobe remain as strangers. Of course there’s not much hope of anything changing until January at this stage as the season of overindulgence beckons. I do love Christmas, or the feelings and memories the season evokes. A time when, even in the desert, we can pretend we live in Dickensian London -of course sidestepping the fact that life at that time was actually nasty, brutish and short- instead believing that tartan is a good choice for the living room and fake garlands are a tasteful addition to the staircase banister. It’s also a time of shameless over-spending in a manner which would make even Paris Hilton blush; of throwing things into our trolley’s, virtual or otherwise, without stopping to analyse the long term benefits of such items as a set of bath towels with snowmen on them or a family set of matching rein...

Warning : I get a little bit serious in this post but stay with me dear reader, I promise a return to trivial drivel next time... They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but a keyboard is nothing against someone with a grudge (and just on that, if someone is coming at you wielding a samurai sword, I really don't think writing 'don't kill me' on a piece of paper is going to stop him in his murderous tracks). To explain: someone recently posted a clip on an expat women’s chat forum, of a TV interview with an Imam in Yemen (or Qatar…somewhere in the middle east). In it he explains the rules surrounding the beating of ones wife. Believe it or not there are guidelines; no bones must be broken, blood must not be drawn and the stick must be of a certain width and length. He also went on to explain how this method of discipline can only be used in one specific circumstance: if said wife refuses to sleep with her husband. However, this must only be used as a last reso...

You'd have to be living under a rock in the desert to be unaware of how dangerous it is to drive here in the UAE.  On the drive from RAK to Dubai, the side of the road is literally strewn with burned- out tyres and car parts and you're guaranteed to spot at least one major accident on any journey lasting longer than half an hour.  It's a topic which occupies much headline space and even has its own facebook group 'if you can drive in the UAE you can drive anywhere' .  I joined this group, not because it was going to achieve anything (much like 'liking' a group called 'murder is wrong' isn't going to throw potential murderers into a moral dilemma and stop them in their murderous tracks) but because it creates a sense of belonging among a small, marginalised minority- i.e. those people in this country who can actually drive. As I see it, the problem lies with two distinct groups- i) those who seem to have no idea how to take a left hand turn,...

Four weeks post-partum and I’ve been dismayed to discover that my seemingly miraculous recovery from wine-addiction was entirely fictitious, brought about solely from the pregnancy hormones swamping my body.  As the hormones slowly ebb, the love affair with the grape flows and I find myself once more enslaved to that glass or two each night as I settle down in front of House ; series 1 and 2 of which I recently downloaded and have been watching obsessively ever since (who would have thought Blackadder's Prince Thickie would make such a brilliant, curmudgeonly American MD?) As a result of my 3 episodes a night habit, I’ve become somewhat of an expert on diagnostic medicine and am prone to pronounce ‘it’s got to be lupus ’ every time someone in my house has a sniffle. On the positive side, my penchant for the hot chocolate and apple crumble served up in my local ‘Shakespeare’ cafe has subsided giving my girth a fighting chance of fitting into my newly acquired wardrobe this side ...

So it’s over.  Thank the imaginary gods above.  And yes, dear reader, as predicted, it was total and utter hell.   Clearly the female brain is hot-wired with denial when it comes to all things childbirth-related since it’s not until one reaches the second stage of labour that the slow recollection descends  ‘ ah yes, I remember this; I’m experiencing the equivalent of being sawn in half without the alleviating ability to pass-out half-way through ’ but of course by then it’s all too late. The hospital in question was faultless and consummately professional aside from the comedienne of a nurse who, two days post-partum, eyed my still-swollen stomach and commented ‘ tee hee are you sure you’re not still pregnant? ’ which frankly went down like a lead balloon as indeed, I still had all the appearance of a woman 5 months into her pregnancy (I’d like to say it was an isolated incident, but sadly more than one Filipina shop assistant has since made the same hilariou...

DH assures me I’m ‘ ready to calf’ which is culchy-speak for ‘childbirth is imminent’ and, bloodcurdling as that thought is, I’m just looking forward to a proper night's sleep.  My nights are currently a revolving door of bathroom-bed-bathroom-bed and my sleeping positions have been reduced to a choice of precisely one: the left side, since sleeping on my back feels like there is a baby seal crushing all my internal organs and sleeping on my right seems to bring about all the symptoms of a minor stroke.  And it's been several weeks since I've taken breathing for granted. Yes, nature has cleverly conspired to ensure that the closing weeks of pregnancy are so utterly uncomfortable that the agonising and horrific ordeal ahead is seen as a blessed relief. I am slightly concerned about giving birth here in the UAE though - just ordering a coffee can be trying at times - so the idea of trying to explain my wish for an epidural could prove to be challenging.  I have t...

So we’re into the home stretch thank goodness. And with the end in sight it is normal for the heavily pregnant female to resort to ‘ nesting’ , an instinctual phenomena characterised by sudden spurts of cleaning and organising of her habitat in preparation for the new arrival. This manifestation is an early indication that labour is imminent. I have my own personally adapted version of this phenomenon. I call it ‘ hoarding ’ and it is characterised by the frantic buying of clothes that I can wear on the other side . I’ve been trawling the Boden sale all week filling my virtual trolly with gorgeous items that will hopefully goad me into actually fitting into them as soon as possible.  And last week I made a special trip to the Dubai Outlet mall with the pretense of treating the children to an hours play in the creche.  In reality I was on a mission to buy something gorgeous in Monsoon . It was disappointing to be honest but I still managed to...

' Are you sure you want to know? ’ asked the German doctor as I stared up at the squirming, leaping form on the screen in front of me. ‘Yes, god yes please yes’ I begged, thinking pleasantly of the gorgeous pink, frilled things I’d spotted in Carter's baby shop the day before. The four children sat silently wrestling each other in the corner, squashed into two armchairs, watching the show. Occasionally there would be a muffled giggle as someone would whisper ‘I see its butt!’ I started to daydream- ‘I’ll call her Delilah….or Jezebel’ I mused , ‘ and she can share a bedroom with nine year old girl…it will be perfec t….all pink and sage toile de jouey I think…’ ‘I see a little penis ’ said the German laconically, jolting me in to reality. I fell silent for a moment, confused and disoriented. I had been absolutely certain this child was female, the pregnancy to date having been a carbon copy of my first. ‘Oh! ’ I quickly adjusted myself, brightening, ‘lovely, anothe...

'Ooh ma'am you mustn't eat so much, you're too fat!' said the thoughtful  and sensitive Filipina behind the counter in ' Splash' after I had revealed that I was three months pregnant.  'You are so big!' Quite. I knew this anyway, a glance in the mirror would've confirmed this assertion, but this comment left me in no doubt. This was further confirmed by the disasterous purchase of a 'pregnancy belt'.  For those who aren't in the know, these belts fit over your normal trousers, which can then be left unzipped, post-prandial style, and perfectly concealed beneath the belt.  The result should be a tailor-made type appearance as the trouser fit perfectly, all lumps and bumps hidden. Unfortunately for me I never got to wear the belt as trying to get my favourite trousers up past my knees turned out to be more challenging than anticipated. I’m only three months pregnant but within the space of 2 days I went from looking as if I'...

I knew something was up when I got my clothes back from the laundry and there was a newborn baby outfit among them.   A few weeks later I bought something in the chemist and the assistant threw a dozen baby’s bibs into the bag for free.   From that moment on I knew my days were numbered and that Demeter , the Greek goddess of fertility would claim me sooner or later. Yes dear reader, this mother of four is soon to become a mother of five. Coming from a long line of very fertile women (my sister has 8 children), fertility for me is not so much a blessing as an affliction.  I realise this isn't a popular statement to make, coming from a generation of women who were told that they had choices, one of which was to postpone childbirth until their thirties only to find that nature had played a cruel trick, that the thirty-something doesn't conceive as easily as the twenty-something.  My heart goes out to women who struggle to conceive; it is frustrating, dis...