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...