Being right, lunar cycles, and learning to speak Australian...

There is a general rule in our house:  In almost all circumstances -- whether it’s a choice between the pasta-dish or the 'Catch of the day' on a meal out, or a debate about the virtues of a minor road versus a main road -- should DH go against my advice, he generally turns out to be wrong.  Put simply, I’m always right. 

Triumphantly I will point out to him (or increasingly my ten-year-old daughter aka Exorcist impersonator): 'If only you had listened to me! I am always right. In all circumstances. As in ALWAYS'

Except in one particular circumstance.


Let me give you an example.  The other night, after a couple of glasses of something suitably pungent, I found I was suddenly irritated at the sight of DH; slack-jawed, dispassionate, and staring with a glazed expression at the TV (yes, the eulogising has most certainly worn off at this point) and started flexing my argumentative muscles. 

Not generally truculent, I nonetheless felt pretty aggrieved at my inability, after several fruitless attempts, to get him to engage in a meaningful discussion about our relationship/future/a dress I spotted in Monsoon, preferring instead to watch a movie featurning Jean-Claude Van-Damme.

Never one to be drawn into an argument that doesn't involve hand gestures to another driver (from within the safety of his car) or someone under ten-years-old, DH calmly ignored my probing, slowly sliding to the right in order to get a better look at the television.  This pushed me over the edge: 'You have no feelings! You're an empty shell!' I cried, throwing back another mouthful in what I hoped was a Sue Ellen-esque flourish.

He ignored me, Jean-Claude was making some moves.

I tried another tack ‘You didn’t miss us when you were alone in Abu Dhabi, you LOVED not having us around!’ That should push his buttons (I knew I was being spectacularly unfair).

Still nothing.

-‘Well go back to Abu Dhabi, leave us here, we don’t need you anyway!’ I spat, glugging back another glass.

-'Are you on the blob?' he suddenly enquired, eyes still on Jean-Claude.

-‘What??? How dare…. No I am NOT as you so rudely put it “On The Blob!” I exploded, apoplectic with self-pitying rage.

-‘Well you soon will be’ he calmly replied, not taking his eyes off of the TV.

'How DARE you!' I spat, 'Why do you always justify your bad behaviour by turning it back on me? This has NOTHING to do with me and EVERYTHING to do with your inability to engage in meaningful dialogue or to care about anything other than yourself, Playstation and whether you'll get laid later on!!'


I flounced out of the room.  Then as an afterthought returned with the devastating final blow -

'DON’T DARE COME TO MY BED TONIGHT!’ I declared as I slammed the door on my way out.

Shaking with rage at the unfairness of it all and wondering if those 'do-it -yourself' divorces were any easier than putting together a peice of IKEA furniture (because if they're not I might need a lawyer which I just can't afford), I took myself off to bed where I sobbed in a haze of wine-infused self-pity for some minutes before the alcohol silently but firmly comatosed me into a death-like slumber.

I woke alone -- but for the sprawled baby beside me -- the next morning, hungover and trying to recollect and re-ignite my rage. Ah yes, I recalled, I hate him and I want him to go back to Abu Dhabi and be treated badly by people who think that slave labour is reasonable and where you can be jailed for saying that god doesn't exist. How dare he ignore me like that, to reduce my every feeling to an hysterical over-reaction to the cyclical harmony between the moon and my cervix.  Bastard!

Pottering out to the bathroom it soon became apparent that he was, once more, correct in his assertion: I was, as he so eloquently put it 'on the blob'.  Annoyingly DH is always right on this one and is better aquainted with my cycle than I am, the monthly arrival of mensus always being a complete and utter revelation to me (there is of course a correlation between this monthly shock and my prolific birth-giving: my inability to keep track of anything on either a daily, weekly or monthly basis ruled out the pill and daily papers for me long ago).

Learning Australenglish...

Anyway, after that I decided it was time to rule out my nightly tipple for a while as I plan our escape to Oz. To this end I went out and purchased the Lonely Planet's pocket-sized ‘Australian Language and Culture’ -- a curiously small publication given the size of the country -- and I’ve been busily learning Australian English, a quaint and rather infantile version of the original, the rule of which seems to consist entirely of using a vowel after the stem of every noun in order to make it sound like something from Cbeebies.

For example: a biker -- a leather-clad, knife-wielding menace to society -- suddenly becomes the Kindergarten-friendly ‘bikie’.

Similarly, a lipstick becomes ‘lippie’, an electric blanket becomes ‘leckie’, a mean person becomes ‘meanie’ and an old person becomes -- astonishingly – an ‘oldie’ (I'm not sure that our friends at Lonely Planet aren't having a bit of a joke with us here....wonder if they'll give me a job...)

Will I ever be fluent?

I don’t think I’ll ever get the hang of it...

I guess this spectacularly unimaginative take on the English language explains why I can only think of one Australian writer (Peter Carey in case you’re wondering, a writer so engagingly gifted that -- contrary to popular belief that my eldest son was named after Oscar Wilde -- was rather named after the male protagonist in his novel ‘Oscar and Lucinda’ (and I was at one point hoping for my never-to-appear second daughter, Lucinda, to complete the pair).

However, it is the rhymning slang that really caused me to chuckle.  Who would have thought there was a slang word for cancer, or should I say ‘Jimmy Dancer’, which is much more fun I’m sure you’ll agree.

Leafing through the few pages devoted to ‘household names’ I was not surprised to see that I recognised only a handful of names, including Kylie Minogue, Paul Hogan and, comically, Russell Crowe who is in fact from New Zealand, but who cares about the small detail of nationality; certainly it never stopped the English from claiming, among others, our old friend Oscar Wilde, Peirce Brosnan and even U2 at times (actually, they can have that last one).

But I’m not criticising Australia: if anything, I’m charmed at the idea of being on a continent so far removed from the rest of the world that they have their very own cultural reference points to which the rest of us are generally not privvy and where a devastating and terminal illness sounds like a children's TV presenter.  


However, my absolute favourite of all the Lonely Planet's paltry offerings was the 'Local Lingo' page which featured inside the back-cover.  Try, if you will, to decipher this phrase into it's English equivalent - 


Ahem: 'pressies for the kiddies at Chrissie'


Yes, you've guessed correctly: 'presents for the children at Christmas'.  


Yep, it'll be a struggle, but hopefully we'll be speaking fluent Aussie within three and a half minutes of getting off the plane.  


Hooroo!

Ah, now this makes it much clearer....

How I nearly lost my inner Pollyanna for good....

They say what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger; certainly three months of quaffing a bottle of Shiraz each night may well have toughened up my liver in the same way the past three months have tested my Pollyanna-like optimism and belief that things will always turn out OK in the end.

The symbiotic and simultaneous pan-continental misery and despair that has characterised mine and DH's lives during this time -- certainly our run of bad luck seemed to be overextended  -- left us at times wondering if we were the unfortunate recipients of a hex of some sort.

In isolation of course most of these situations could have been rationalised, but when heaped on top of each other they became unmanageable and I spent several weeks bemoaning the turn my life was taking, convinced in my darkest moments that I would never see DH again and was sentenced to a life as a single mother of five.  It of course all started with-

• the house of horrors which was hovel-house; 
• DH not being paid for THREE months; 
• the angry man with the massive dog who moved in next door to hovel-house and who's wife and three children spent the entire day inside the house with the blinds down and who felt obliged to pay me irate visits requesting we keep the noise down (I must admit to allowing my imagination to run away with this one and was convinced his wife spent her days in a cupboard under the stairs, only allowed out occasionally to limp out as far as the gate before disappearing inside again); 
• the ex-con at the end of the street who spent thirty minutes knocking on my front door at 2 in the morning, leaving me to conclude that it was in fact the woman next door knocking from her basement prison -- it wasn't until I ventured downstairs, mobile phone in hand (not much of a weapon) that I realised the knocking was in fact coming from the front door by which time I was so freaked out I phoned the police for the first time in my life although must admit to having to pause for a moment: 'what's the number again? 911?, no goddamnit, too many cop shows, it's 999!!'.
•  DH not being paid for THREE months!!

But things turned out very well in the end: I'm back in my lovely house with the pink front door; DH is back home in the bosom of his family; a generous offer of a job in the southern hemisphere has been issued and more importantly, it's Ramadan and I'm not in a Muslim country. Yay!

I really don't think I could have survived a fourth year of it without being arrested.

DH arrived home last week after a very stressful time at work, a time which culminated in his employers eventually being named and shamed in The National, the most popular English-language newspaper in the UAE (I can't imagine how they got hold of the story, some disgruntled wife no doubt...).

Having spent weeks in anticipation of a visit (impossible until pay day) it was with great excitement that myself and the children headed out from our little village in the West of Ireland, stretching and yawning, early one morning last week to make the journey to Dublin airport. I had spent many moments during those very bleak days mulling over the airport re-union; I was pretty sure it would go something like this:-

Assembled directly in front of the Arrivals exit, DH would spot us immediately as he came through, exhausted and a little demoralised from his ordeal, but overjoyed to see his beautiful and immaculately turned out children as they rushed to him en masse, clambouring and clutching him into a touching group hug.

Stoic as ever, I would stand back and allow him this sentimental kodak-moment with his children, confident that it was I that he craved most during our time apart.

Eventually he would untangle himself from the clutch of the children, his gaze falling hungrily upon me before we collapsed into each others arms, laughing and sobbing simultaneously while furiously whispering promises to never again be apart.

Well, it's always nice to daydream.

I had bought bright white tops for the boys to wear to the airport.  I had also bought Ribena drinks for the journey -- I think it's safe to say these two items are without doubt mutually exclusive -- particularly when children are involved.

We got to the airport with time to spare and the children emerged from the car Ribena-stained and squabbling. Having ascertained that his plane had indeed landed, we quickly found the arrivals hall where the children positioned themselves at the barrier and waited.  And waited. And waited.

There must be a problem. Having witnessed at least three flight arrivals as they proceeded through arrivals exit, I started to panic.'Oh my god, the UAE won't let him leave, they know he has a car fine, they know I blasphemed online, he's rotting in a Dubai jail right now, what will I do? I'm going to spend the rest of my life alone while he is fed nothing but an orange a week while being kicked by cruel and embittered prison guards!'

I tried to phone him, no answer 'No, they would probably take his mobile off of him when they arrested him' I reasoned.

Panicking I rushed to the arrivals screen to check I hadn't misread it.  No, it's definitely landed.  Yep, landed at Terminal 1.  Well, there's only one arrivals hall for the whole airport isn't there??...


Turns out there is a second arrivals hall, the one which we SHOULD have been waiting in. Typical!

Racing from Terminal two to Terminal one, we made it in about ten minutes.  Piling into the lift we panted as it whisked us downwards before spitting us out into the other Arrivals hall.  Dashing out into the throng of people as they breezed through I suddenly spotted DH looking lost and confused:

Is it him? I recognise the T-shirt -- is that REALLY him?  He looks like hell.  And definitely shorter than I remember. I thought DH was taller than that.... 


I suffered the same confusion on our second date: I knew he was the one for me; my future husband, a father for my unborn children, my soul-mate -- problem was I just couldn't remember what he looked like.  Galvanised by a gaggle of friends I showed up to O'Malley's bar in Westport to meet him hoping to hell he'd recognise me.  Looking around nervously, I ordered a drink and waited; he appeared from around a corner within seconds. 'I knew when I saw the barman pour a whiskey that you were here' he told me (our first date had coincided with a whiskey promotion which awarded me several Paddy's T-shirts by the end of the night).

So I didn't trust my instincts as I stared at sad,crumpled, and slightly shorter than I remembered, DH.

I felt shy -- I hadn't seen him in three months and felt suddenly self-conscious.  I could read the same disappointment and confusion in his face as he surveyed me: ten pounds heavier, lank ponytail with grey struggling through, face ashen from stress and weeping, and my nose sporting an attractive and stubborn cold sore.

But he's here now, we've dispensed with the hagiographical fantasies we had created of each other during that time apart and have reaquainted ourselves with each others foibles and peccadillo's.

And we both look older.  Definitely older.

Being back in our house after three years away is a strange experience: it looks smaller, things seem out of place, my much loved belongings seem shabby and faded, and yesterday we pulled down all the boxes we'd shoved into the attic before leaving for Abu Dhabi and with much joy poured over the many photographs, toys, winter clothes and even my wedding dress (yes, it still fits!) that we willingly and thoughtlessly packed up without a care.

It made me realise that next time I move away I will certainly be bringing many of these things with me.  I have friends who have lived in several countries but insist on carting old family heirlooms around with them.  I couldn't understand why they did this at the time, why not travel light and spend your relocation allowance in Ikea?  I've changed my mind about that now.

Being an expat can be a lonely and rootless experience if you don't make an absolute effort to create a sense of permanency and continuity in your home.  Our time in the UAE saw two months in an Abu Dhabi hotel followed by one year in a villa in Al Ain, one year in a townhouse in RAK, and 8 months in a duplex in RAK. By the time we'd moved into that last house I'd all but given up putting up pictures and curtains, leaving them to languish in boxes awaiting the next move.

I can't believe I'm saying this but, I'm ready to settle down somewhere for several years.  This nomadic lifestyle, while initially exciting, ends up feeling pretty empty and more of a box-ticking pretense at real life rather than the actual thing.

Bring on Australia, I'm told you actually get paid over there.