Ch-ch-ch-changes!

So there I was, merrily writing up my Thailand holiday (in MARCH! God I'm a terrible blogger) to post and trying to decide just how boring it was to make it into two blog posts, when certain wheels were set in motion.

Well, actually, the wheels were set in motion the month before when 008 handed in his resignation. I was surprised and a bit concerned about my job - his assurances that my job was not in any danger rang somewhat hollow since he wasn't actually going to be there to ensure his assurances. Still, I went on my lovely Thailand holiday and he worked his month's notice, leaving the day before I got back.

I can't say I was exactly devastated because we hadn't exactly gotten to know each other that well, but it was weird and I didn't have all that much to do.

I'd say about a month went by, before the day came that I was writing up my Thailand trip and one of Senior Leadership Team I'd been supporting called me into the conference room in the presence of my friend from HR to tell me I was being made redundant.

Ho hum. Such is the way of the world, and I was planning on looking for another job once I'd seen out a year there.

But the timing sucked to say the least!

O had gone on a business trip to London the week before, and the world being the glorious place that it is, his return was delayed by that lovely little ash cloud that was hanging around. I had also been hoping to have the security of an income while looking for another job which was now out of the window. I had only just 6 months with this company and so wasn't entitled to any settlements, but they were rather fab in allowing me to not work in the office during my months notice period - so that I could get a head start on the job hunt.

Since I didn't actually DO all that much, I didn't have a lot that I needed to hand over. I made a few phone calls to my friend in Dubai (who tells me she reads this now, she must be bored - Hi P!) who was going to have to bear the brunt of what I wasn't doing any more and told the SLT what they needed to know. I packed up my desk (forgetting a few things, of course) into a couple of bags and trudged my sorry self home.

When I got home there was a delightful surprise waiting for me. The electricity in the flat had been turned off. It turns out someone forgot to pay the bill. The thing about no electricity out here is that it means no air-con. This is bad. So after a few frantic and teary phone calls to the UK and to long-suffering friends in AD, I found I could call the electricity people and I begged and sobbed for them to turn me back on - which they did within the hour! The now heavenly whumph-hmmmmmmmmm of the fans starting up awakening me from the nap I decided to take.

So there we go. I am now unemployed yet again!

However, that is not the only change in this little Foreigner's world this year - oh no! We have good changes as well!

After O made his way back to the UAE (no doubt swimming through shark infested waters, hitching lifts with militia and then crossing the desert by camel) he asked me a question and I answered "yes". So there's that.

I started Arabic classes. So there's that too.

Both are fun, although the first is taking up far more time than it really should since the grand affair isn't actually taking place until next year (but I already have the ceremony booked and have bought a dress - eek! Fingers crossed it looks good - I'll explain another time), but it's so much fun looking at food and hairstyles and shoes and flowers and food and venues and dresses and jewellery and bands and did I mention the food?

The second one is going surprisingly well. I fully and wholeheartedly recommend Berlitz for all your language learning needs! They use the immersion technique (where the language of instruction is also the goal language the majority of the time, this helps to think in the goal language instead of trying to translate words and sentences from your mother tongue).
It's not easy, but I never expected it to be. What I am very surprised about is how quickly I'm picking up the reading and writing of Arabic - I was always terrible at orthography and couldn't figure out new alphabets at all. But this is fun and we are learning it slowly enough that it can remain fun. Plus, practicing writing means I don't have to study conjugation.

Lots of ch-ch-ch-changes in the land of sand - and I'm also foolishly considering starting a restaurant review blog linked to this one! Considering how bad I am at maintaining this lovely space it probably is an exercise in futility. But I do love writing about food, and the only other proper review site I've found is this one, which is alright - but the reviews are generally a little basic. I think I could do better.

Thinking about it. Now where are those pictures of horse-drawn carriages I was looking at...?

A weekend in Dubai

Times have been a little stressful recently at Foreigner Towers recently.

It’s complicated, and boring unless you’re in the middle of it, but there was a period of about three months where O and I weren’t sure if we were going to be able to stay in Abu Dhabi or if we were going to be told to pack-up and ship-out without too much warning. I should clarify at this point that the push would come from work sources and no other.

To be waiting, powerlessly, to hear a final decision that is always promised tomorrow but never comes leads to a great deal of tension and I, for one, felt an awful lot of anger.

The decision finally came. It wasn’t the one we hoped for, so there is still a lot of anger on my part, but at least we are no longer living with a weight dangling over our heads. And we are staying, which is brilliant.

After such a stressful time, O and I needed a bit of a break from it all, so he booked us into a hotel and we spent the weekend before last in Dubai.

It was just the two of us, we needed a little time just with each other, and we had a simple plan: Check out the Dubai Mall. Conveniently, there is a lot to do in and around Dubai Mall so we were well entertained. The Burj Khalifa (nee Dubai) elegantly dominates the surroundings, which includes a handful of hotels, the Souk Al Bahr (one of the new-old “souks” that seem to be cropping up everywhere) and a waterway out of which a fabulous water-show is propelled every evening after the sun goes down.

Having driven up on Thursday night we were able to get an early-ish start on Friday. Early enough for brunch anyway. There are a myriad of places to eat in Dubai Mall and unfortunately we decided to have dim sum at Ping Pong. I’ve heard less than amazing things about Ping Pong in the UK, and the branch in Dubai lived up to the low reputation. The service shuttled from obnoxious to surly and from non-existent to intrusive. The food was strictly ok.

After eating we strolled around outside, enjoying the sun and the water and the view of the Burj before taking the plunge and entering the mecca of consumerism that is the Dubai Mall.

What is so good about this particular mall is not only the size (which is immense) but the organisation. After you have solved the mystery of the dual floor-numbering system for the mall and car park (FAR more complicated than anything in this world needs to be, brain surgery has to be easier) and are able to actually get in to the mall it is particularly easy to find your way around and find what you’re looking for. All of the high end designer shops are in one section, the accessories are in another. Jewellery has its own area, as does electronics, and near by is the book shop of wonder – Kinokuniya. A Japanese book shop it is the largest I have come across in the UAE and, so far, the best anywhere. So well organised, and intuitively so, it was a joy to browse and I can only imagine that if you are after something specific it will be easy to find. While there is a food court, there are far more interesting places to eat or stop for a coffee dotted around and amongst the shops.

Needless to say, we killed a lot of time there.

After resting our weary legs for only a short hour back at the hotel, we donned our gladrags and headed out for dinner at Asado in The Palace hotel. An Argentinean restaurant, it gets its name from the open fire that the speciality is cooked over. That speciality? Spit roast baby goat. There was really no option for me and I had to have the goat, while O went for a steak. The steak was good, but the goat was amazing. We’d ordered sides but barely touched them and I whole heartedly recommend the empanadas for a starter, O had a beef and onion one that tasted like the most perfect Cornish pasty in the world. We were both too full for desert.

It was still early so we headed around the Souk and across the bridge to one of the Arabic restaurant/cafes that had a lot of pleasantly cramped seating outside the ground floor of the mall for coffee and shisha, both very nice. While we were there we were able to get a much better view of the fountain display.

There is a very shallow waterway separating the Burj Khalifa from the mall, souk and hotels. Once the sun goes down the water show begins! Every 20 minutes or so there is a flurry of water shooting up into the air in a delightful manner, accompanied by some rhythmically and atmospherically appropriate music. Every hour or so there is an extra long, extra delightful show and everything stops for a short while to watch.

Having had our fill of watching water being projectiled into the atmosphere, we moseyed back over to the souk and settled on Karma Kafe (yes, I absolutely HATE the name being spelled that way) for a couple of beverages, primarily because is by the same people as Buddha Bar. It was nice, the music a little on the loud side though and appeared to be mostly geared up for eating. The décor was fun in that red Zen way but the best bit was, just as we were deciding to go, the floor show started!

There was a buzz of activity behind the bar and then the music was cranked up even higher while the bar staff indulged in a little fire play for the benefit of the customers still remaining. There was the spinning and throwing (and dropping) of Molotov cocktails, fire breathing and a little touch of fire poi. All good fun, though I fear the performers needed a lot more practice since O and I slipped off our bar stools and took a couple of steps back to a slightly safer distance!

Brunch on Saturday morning and another brief spin around the mall (where I may or may not have finally maxed out my credit card) before we headed back to Abu Dhabi and reality.

It was a lovely weekend. I had a great time exploring a part of Dubai that I didn’t know at all before, and shopping is always fun.

Dubai is a fun city to visit, but for me, I wouldn’t want to live there. While I’m not a restrictivist, there seems to be a distinct air of Anything Goes in Dubai, which I can’t really get behind. Without going into specifics, there were a few moments when O and I looked at each other and said “you wouldn’t see that in Abu Dhabi” and I certainly felt glad of it.

Dubai moves a lot faster, is a lot more hedonistic and has a lot more westerners. Which is fine, absolutely, but I’m so glad that I live in Abu Dhabi.

New Year’s Eve in the Desert

Due to my new job, O and I weren’t able to spend long in the UK over Christmas and flew back the day after Boxing Day.

This meant that we were to spend our first New Year’s Eve in Abu Dhabi.

What to do?

We had a number of options. Most of the hotels with bars/clubs had some sort of event going on. There was talk of going to a beach party organised by one of the hotels and then sneaking in to the inevitable club party, we could go for dinner, we could do nothing OR we could go and see in the new year out in the middle of the desert.

We went for the last option – mostly because of some deluded notion of making the most of being able to experience things while we can, or something, but also because a lot of people we like were going and the other options slowly fizzled away unless we wanted to do them on our own.

So. December 31st saw us shuffling on down to a car park to wait for the bus that was going to take us into the desert. 10 minutes pass and we find we’re in the wrong car park so hot-foot it across the 6-way junction and make it on to the bus. A slow and perilous journey begins and I make sure too look for that window that busses have that have a little hammer next to it or are easy to push out (there isn’t one) because the bus is in a less than ideal condition and much the same could be said about the driver. Still, after an hour or so on the motorway and then a desert road, we get there… somehow.

Where “there” is, I’m not entirely sure, but we’re herded off the bus and – in sixes – into range rovers. It is at this point that the most fun part of the evening began. For five minutes we were driven off the road for a brief but wonderful bit of dune-bashing before coming to a stop at the top of one particular dune.

Looking down we could see what was supposed to be a Bedouin Camp with falling down walls, shelters around the outer edges, a big stage in the middle and a camel outside (really). The stage was for dancing and that night’s “entertainment”.

All around the stage were big carpets that had long, low tables interspersed with cushions to sit on. Along two sides of the camp were covered seating areas away from the stage, on another was the shisha area and along the last side were the toilets (with paper and soap and everything, praise be!) and the food area.

This is where it all began to fall down. For the (worryingly low) ticket price we understood that we’d be getting food, drinks – even alcohol, shisha and entertainment. Food there was, only they made the mistake of opening the buffet about two hours after everyone had arrived, meaning everyone was hungry which meant the buffet got mobbed and people queued for a good hour to get any food. If you didn’t queue then, that was pretty much it for another few hours until the (awful) shawrma station opened, which was supplemented by some very greasy fried spring rolls and stuff. Thankfully the drinks didn’t run out, although we were looking at 30 quid for a bottle of very average white wine of which there was only one kind.

The shisha was free, if you could figure out the ways of the secret society to get any and then maintain it with coals and replacement heads throughout the night. First we were told we couldn’t have the shisha next to the stage, which we weren’t, so no problem. Then we were told we couldn’t have them on the carpeted area because of fire risk – fair enough, but the designated shisha area had six seats, we were eight and some of us wanted to smoke and some of us didn’t – so we moved to the sand. We tried bribing one of the shisha guys to look after us and bring us coal but he ignored us completely after getting his money and we ended up raiding the nearby barbeque pit for our own coals.

This leaves the “entertainment”. At one point there was a magician for the kids, and a belly-dancer came out and gave the most pathetic performance I’ve ever seen. For the rest of the night there was a DJ who played non-stop Bangra. I’ve no issue with Bangra, but I can’t help feeling that since we were supposed to be having a faux Arabic/Bedouin experience, music that has an Arabic slant to it would have been slightly more in keeping with the theme.

We were able to, on the whole, enjoy ourselves – in spite of the complete lack of organisation. Though I would never see in the new year in the same way again, I am now much more keen to go on a desert safari which I’m told involves lots of dune bashing and culminates in a similar event.

One thing I am really glad about though: As budget as the event was, and how badly organised, at least there were toilets.

Unemployed Again

My job was only temporary – six months filling in for someone who was on leave – so it wasn’t exactly a surprise when I was told that my services would no longer be required (only they were much, much nicer than that – they even bought me a going away present!) and I had actually been expecting it to happen two months earlier.

I worked the full six months, which is fantastic in terms of pay, but was more than enough in terms of time in the role. I was soooooooo not right for that job. It wasn’t especially difficult, it wasn’t especially challenging (apart from sometimes, but then any job is challenging when you have to deal with ‘special’ people who seem to have been put there for the sole purpose of making you want to bang your head against the desk and gouge your eyes out with a rusty tea-spoon).

But really, that was part the problem (the challenging bit, not the head-banging/eye-gouging bit). The role was not challenging in any way after the first couple of weeks. After learning all the processes and who everyone was and which gloves to use to handle them… that was it! And very often my set tasks were completed before lunch and I had to wait for something else to come up. No challenge.

I was bored and frustrated, but it taught me about the kind of jobs that I absolutely will not be applying for now that I am looking again. Anything with “assistant” in the title is out (unless the job title is “Jonny Depp’s Bathing Assistant”, in which case I might make an exception – depends on whether or not dental is included in the health insurance).


And so begins the dance of looking at job advertisements online, filling in their make-you-want-to-tear-your-hair-out application forms, attaching my CV and cover letter and never hearing a thing from them.

Job hunting everywhere is tough right now – I know that. I have enough friends (I do too have friends!) in enough parts of the world to have a decent idea of what the job market is like across a fair proportion of the globe.

Really, it is no harder to find work here than it is anywhere else. In fact, if you are in the right industry then you’re golden! Sadly, I am not in the right industry and so I am more like slightly tarnished tin.

Here’s the thing. If you’re in gas, construction or engineering you will be snapped up – in some cases they’ll even train you! Though they do prefer that you be Emirati for that. Anything else and you can find work, however you had better have been doing the exact role that is advertised for, oooo, let’s say 5-15 years.

‘Transferable skills’ is not a commonly known commodity, I’m sad to say. And since I abound with transferrable skills and not very much else… I’m not hearing a lot of response back from the applications I send out.

I’m really not going about this the right way, I know that. I know that I should be shlepping my bum around to all the places that I want to apply to and speaking directly to the HR department. But, to be honest, the thought of all that makes me very nervous. I’ve not had to do stuff like this before. Of course I’ve had interviews, but that was always in the academic world, which I know! I don’t know this world at all. And I feel completely pathetic confessing that, at the age of *cough*28*cough*.


For now, I’m enjoying being the master of my own time again. And I’m filling in those application forms and emailing my CV. It’s been a week and I’m not bored yet, I still have a number of little projects that I had neither the time nor the inclination for while I was still working. I’m also determined to get into the kitchen more and have already begun that process with a delicious lasagne last week and I have plans for all manner of soup related experiments.

The end of a looooong chapter

At the end of last month I went back to London to attend my graduation. Along with many other “graduands” that month I had my moment where I walked across a stage, shook a hand and sat back down as a “graduate”.

However, this was not my first time. Oh no. Not for the first time did my poor parents have to sit through a multitude of boring inspirational speeches and a long list of unpronounceable names (miraculously pronounced correctly – I have always wondered just how many days the announcer spends practicing those names) just to see those few fleeting seconds that stand to mark the time, effort and – lest we forget! – money that went in to earning that particular academic diploma.

This was my third graduation ceremony and I can now legitimately call myself Dr. Foreigner (PhD, please don’t think I can help if there is some kind of heart related emergency). Aside from the red and blue gown and the ridiculous floppy hat the ceremony was much the same as the previous two – except it also wasn’t.

Pretty early on in my path down further education I knew that I wanted to be a lecturer. I loved the subject I was studying, it engrossed me and I found my most of my lecturers utterly inspiring. It was the perfect life! The university environment is dynamic and exciting, colleagues and peers are interesting, students are enthralled, the holidays are good and research in exotic locations is the cherry in the amaretto sour!

So I did my BA and found my groove. Pursued said groove into an MA straight after that and then got offered funding to do a PhD right back at my home uni with one of my favorite lecturers from my Bachelor days. Perfect. And it was… for a while. The subject area wasn’t exactly in my groove, but the region was (Africa baby!) and the future looked bright, shiny and right on target.

I had a lot of fun studying for my PhD. I met some firm friends, I lived in a wonderful part of the world for a heart-wrenchingly short time and had some experiences that I would not trade for all the world. I also learned a lot about myself and one of the things I learned is that academia is not the right place for me. Or rather, I am not right for it. All of things that I loved about being an undergrad were still there, but the more time I spent in the university system the more I came to understand how it really works.

The interesting colleagues and peers are also competitive and not exempt from office politics as I had previously fantasized. The students are very often there for the cool or because it’s what you do, innit? (apart from the Trustafarians who are going to save the world as soon as they finish this joint), not because they are on a quest for knowledge. The holidays are spent in the office, catching up on research and writing that there is no time for during term-time because of all the admin that comes with teaching. Then there’s the research. While the locations are exotic, you need a certain something to be accomplished when it comes to research. My sister told me that if you don’t have an axe to grind it will always be a struggle, and she is absolutely right.

I do not have an axe to grind, and that coupled with all the above eventually led me to the conclusion that academia is not the place for me. I loved the teaching, but I am simply not cut out for the rest of it. The revelation came to me about 2/3rds of the way in to the whole shi-bang – far too late to quit, after all the time and money, but too soon for it to be nearly over.

So there began the struggle to the end. I won’t go into how bad it was (very, very bad), but I will say that I’m amazed O stuck with me through it since he basically propped me up, emotionally and mentally, day to day and it was not an easy job.

I completed. The thesis was accepted and I got my diploma.

Looking for work before and after we moved to Abu Dhabi was a little… stressful. I hadn’t yet (and probably still haven’t) come to terms with the fact that I am not going to be using my degree. I am not going to go in to teaching/lecturing. It is difficult to let go of the plan that an 18 year old girl had and worked for, even though the girl is now 10 years older and in a different place in her life. It is difficult to let go of all the hours of studying, writing, wringing of hands, pacing of floors, tears, tantrums and little glories when a chapter/paper/article was finally finished. Lots of highs but so many more lows. All of this had to be put aside and I had to start thinking about what I could possibly want to do (didn’t have too much of a clue), what was I qualified to do (not very much) and what could I bear to do until I found out what I actually wanted/could do (my job search criteria included “job description doesn’t make me want to cry”).

We landed in Abu Dhabi and after a couple of months I landed in a job. It isn’t an ideal job *understatement* but it pays me a wage which is so vital out here. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life and I look for jobs every single day.

Nearly a year later and I returned to London to attend my graduation ceremony. As I said, the ceremony was much the same as the first two – overly long speeches, uncomfortable temperatures (too hot for this and the first, too cold for the middle one) but this one was without the sense of excited anticipation that the previous two had. Before, when I walked across a stage and shook a hand, I was about to enter into a new and exciting phase of my long-term goal. I had a goal! I was moving onwards and upwards and very much looking forwards. This time there wasn’t so much anticipation, excited or otherwise. I felt sad for what wasn’t right for me and what I wasn’t right for. I looked backwards at what I was leaving behind with a certain measure of regret but knowing full well that, despite any romantic notions I might still hold on to about being an academic, it is not the life for me. Full stop. So walking across that stage and shaking that hand wasn’t the start of a new stage in my life (as the inspirational speakers so often suggest). It was the end of an old one. The closing of a chapter. Maybe even of a book that I have to put on the shelf now, for once and for all.

Despite this sounding very maudlin, and for which I apologize but is the way it is, I had a wonderful graduation trip. I hadn’t seen my family or friends in an age and I got to spend four whole days back in my fabulous home city. I had a lovely celebratory dinner with the family (lovely in spite of the food I might add) followed by drinks and a little bit of dancing in my fancy graduation clobber – though I left the gown behind. The rest of the time I mooched and munched, went to the museum with my dad and shopping with my mum. Aside from the whole graduating thing I had a list of three tasks and I completed each with aplomb: I ate my body weight in dim sum, attempted to drink my body weight in Café Nero (but didn’t succeed, which is probably a good thing for my blood pressure!) and splurged in All Saints. However, I didn’t see enough of any body and cried my heart out on the plane home - which was doubly embarrassing because we had cashed in some air miles and got ourselves upgraded to business class baby yeah! (very nice, but definitely not worth the cash cost!) and I had wanted to seem terribly sophisticated and like I belonged there *sigh*

I am proud of my achievement – but I am also very aware of what I went through to achieve it, and I can’t help thinking that if it was meant to be it shouldn’t have been that hard.

Basically, what it all comes down to is that it is Dr. Foreigner to you – got it?

Food poisoning

I have it.

After very delicious sushi last night (yes, I'm looking at you unagi!).

Bleurgh.

So here's a fun thing

Our internet has been cut off at home.

It had been acting funny in the evenings and then over the weekend... nothing. So I called up our internet provider (there is only one, got to love a monopoly!) and the conversation went a little something like this:


Foreigner: I'm having trouble connecting to the internet, could you have a look and see what the problem might be?

Call centre man: Certainly madam... ah yes, we have cut you off because you didn't pay your bill.

Foreigner: We haven't received a bill.

Call centre man: I see that we have no records of your address on file, that would be why you have not received a bill.

Foreigner: *head implodes*


Thaaaaat's right. And instead of attempting to make contact with us by any other means (the same company that provides internet are also one of only two companies to provide telephone services - both mobile and landline - oh! And they own half of the other company as well), they just cut us off.

Luckily, it is easy to remedy and after making a quick stop in branch to pay them some money we should be reconnected within a few hours. My guess is that this happens so frequently they need the remedy to be easy and quick.

Grrrrnnnnaarrrggghhhh.


On a more positive note (because my dad - hi dad! - is worried that I'm not happy due my latest bloggings being grump-driven) I broke-in my sexy red mixer over the weekend. I made oatmeal and raisin cookies, except I used currents instead of raisins because I like them more. The mixer works like a dream, is disgustingly easy to clean and the cookies weren't half bad either.

I'd like to say I only ate one or two, but that would be a lie.

I ate loads.

Firstly it was because I wanted to test how long to cook them for, but after that it was just because they tasted good. I need to add some cinnamon and possibly a smidge of nutmeg and then they'll be perfect.

I also went shopping on Friday. I've been inspired by The Sartorialist to put a little more thought into the way I dress, rather than just relying on the usual jeans and black vest. So to that end I bought a bunch of new stuff that is a little off the beaten track, for me. The sort of things I would want to wear but which required too much thought to put together - but now I'm prepared to put that thought in and went shopping looking at how things would work together, shape, colour, details and trying to look just that little bit more stylish.

Exciting stuff. Wish me luck!

I have to thank Cover Girl over at Sandy and Danny for indirectly introducing me to The Sartorialist - he's on her blog list and I'm nosy.


UPDATE: Since I'm sure everyone will be terribly concerned about this internet issue I'm letting you know that it is all better now. Hurrah for being able to lounge and surf.

I work in an office that has no windows

Which sometimes means by the end of the week I feel a little maudlin. I’m convinced it’s the lack of natural light. I start to feel a little blue because all day I’m under fluorescents, facing a fluorescent and breathing recycled air (NOT that I’m complaining about the air-con, by no means would I be so foolish in this country, but still… you know… fresh air is, surely, better for you).

So I’m feeling a little blue, partly because O is away this week and I miss him and it’s a big flat to be rattling around in on my own. But also because when O is away I notice my lack of independence even more. Contrary, some might think, but true none-the-less. I don’t really notice that I’m dependent on O for getting around while he is here – it’s no hardship to ask for a lift to the mall or whatever. When he’s not here I’m confined to taxis and the kindness of others for getting around.

Taking cabs is not such a biggie when it’s around town, and more often than not when I go for my weekly treat at the mall I’ll take a cab there, or back, or both – depending on what O is doing that day and if he wants to join me afterwards or not. But when it comes to going to and from work it’s another matter.

My office is a good half hours drive away from home, usually more like 45 minutes or even an hour, and taking a cab both ways soon adds up – both monetarily and with ones nerves. So I ask for a lift. It’s not a big deal, I don’t think either of the people who currently give me a lift to/from work mind terribly much (especially the person who gives a lift from work since it’s less of a lift and more allowing me to sit in the car while they drive back to their accommodation in town from where I catch a cab the last five minutes of the way home).

But I mind. I don’t really like it. I don’t like having to ask. I find it can be tedious to have to make small talk for an extra hour a day, and so I’m sure they find it even more so considering it’s their car (especially in the evenings when all I want to do is switch my brain off from work, in the mornings it’s not so bad – it helps that I particularly like the person who gives me a lift to work), plus my movements are dictated by when they want to move. At least with O I could very much say that I’ve had enough and if there wasn’t some emergency we could leave at least a little early. I can’t do that with anyone else. Not so bad when they want to leave early – pretty rubbish if they have to stay late.

In theory this situation could be easily rectified. I do know how to drive. I have a driving license. However, I don’t have a local driving license and to get insurance and thus be able to drive a car I would need my UK license transferred. This in itself is not really such a big deal and I should really pull my finger out and just do it – but I would have to go to Dubai to get it done (the joys of having my residence visa issued from Dubai rather than Abu Dhabi – long and boring story, much like this one really!) but… well I’d have to take a day off work, and I’d have to get O to take a day off work to drive me there, or I’d have to get a cab, and really I don’t strictly need to be driving right now since I mostly have O around, and I can get a lift if I really need one, and it’s bloody terrifying even being a passenger in this country never mind actually being behind the wheel of a car…

It’s days like today though, that really make me want to just get on with it and get myself independently mobile.

In an effort to look on the brighter side I have comprised a couple of lists:

Reasons to be sad
O is away and I miss him.
I hate my job.
I’m struggling to find a new job.
I miss my friends and family.
I’m not getting enough sleep.

Reasons to be glad
O is coming back on Saturday.
This job is ending soon!
I'll have lots of time for baking.
I'll be back at the end of July for a bit (graduation).
It's the weekend.


I think that’ll do for now. All the negatives are cancelled out and then add an extra positive because the weekend always means two extra points.

In Fond Remembrance of Solitude

I have a little grump on, which might explain the nature of this blog entry.


Having recently started working full time, after more than 8 years solidly spent at university, there are a number of changes and adjustments I have had to make in my life and the lifestyle to which I was accustomed. Most of these changes and adjustments are not quite as bad as I make them out to be at 6am when I’m struggling to remember how to work the shower, bleary-eyed with sleep and still a bit confused as to whether there really is a Nutella-monster that wants to turn me into a piece of toast.

One of these changes is having a routine. Nowt wrong with that. It’s nice to know where I’m meant to be and when, for a set time of the day. The fact that I wish my routine started a couple of hours later than it currently does is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

In my previous life as a PhD student, I had no routine whatsoever (and yes, this was indeed part of the problem and definitely one of the reasons why it took so bloody long to finally finish the damn thing), everything was up to me. When I got up, when I went to bed, when I sat at my desk, when I watched Frasier re-runs, when I went for a look around the shops… It was just too much freedom for a champion procrastinator such as myself. That being said – I was a master of my own time, which I loved, although I didn’t have any money to do anything with that time, which I loved somewhat less.

Now that I’m gainfully employed I have much, much less free time. But I do have cash to blow on meaningless frivolities (like getting my nails done and buying coffee) which make that precious free time more enjoyable. I relish my free time now, rather than being burdened by it. Plus it is guilt free, which is something that your average, right-minded person (and by that I mean everyone who has not done a PhD) takes absolutely for granted. For 8 years I felt guilty when I was doing anything other than work. What is surprising is how the weight of that guilt didn’t a) crush me because I so often did so little work in my free time or b) inspire me to do more work. I refer you to my above statement about being a champion procrastinator. I could have won awards for my procrastination, except they’d never hold an award ceremony for it because everyone would leave making their travel plans to the last minute and end up not being able to go. Sigh.

What with now being able to relish my free time, one would think that make the most of it by embarking on adventures (mind you, look at what happened on my last adventure), expanding my horizons, exploring new avenues of all sorts… but I don’t. I tend to spend my free time sleeping, eating and vegged out in front of the TV with my laptop open, surfing various not-especially-enlightening websites (apart from a couple of special mentions such as this one, this one and, oh yeah!, this one) thus giving neither my full attention and gleaning far little from either than I would have if I had bothered! That and going shopping, which is always fun… especially when you actually have money.

Which all brings me to the final change that I want to talk about. Being alone. When I was doing the PhD (and living away from my home university) I spent cascading vast quantities of time alone. All day in fact. O would get up at stupid o’clock in the morning to go to work and then come home at some point in the late afternoon/evening, leaving me all that time by myself. I am fairly solitary by nature, I need alone time or I get even more grumpy than usual, but this was too much even for me. There were tools at my disposal to somewhat alleviate that feeling of being ALONE but really there isn’t much of a substitute for real human company – which is why I had a tendency to bounce up and down like a little Terrier puppy whenever O came home, demanding attention and to be taken out for a walk and then getting all downhearted and dejected if the cruel, mean-hearted, villain dared to even grumble that he was “too tired” after working for maybe 12 hours that day. Tsk.

So yeah, alone. Now I didn’t enjoy being alone, as I said. However I am now in the position when I look back fondly at certain aspects of that time and wish to be whisked back in a time machine for just a few precious hours of sweet, silent solitude.

I was not prepared for what it would be like to work full time in office in many ways, but definitely the aspect that is grating the most right now is that I am never, ever, alone! From the moment I arrive in the morning until the moment I leave there is always someone there. And even then that’s not the start or the end because O and I work in the same building and so drive to and from work together (but that doesn’t really count because I picked him to be the person who is always around and, frankly, I’d much rather he was there than wasn’t). So, yeah. Even on those merciful occasions when everyone else (all three of them) is out of the office and I have it to myself, the phone is ringing and people are stopping by to see the people who aren’t there.

There. is. no. escape…!

I go for a cigarette break and there is someone there, someone I’ve nodded to twice before and who now wants to have meaningless chit-chat about the same old stuff that I’ve had meaningless chit-chats about before because I’m the new one. Some days this is fine, and some of the people are very nice, but some days I just want to smoke my cigarette and play Sudoku on my phone without having to explain that I’ve been here X months, yes I like Abu Dhabi very much, I live in Y, yes it is getting hot now, blah blah AAARRRRGGGHHHH!

There is one place where one can pretty much always expect to be alone, no matter where you are (unless you have little children of the type that I was who are less sentient being and more semi-permanently attached tail) and that is the loo. Surely, surely, one can reasonably expect to be able to go to the loo in some semblance of isolation, right? WRONG! Ok, it’s not like anyone actually comes into the little cubicle with me and stands there watching, but both of the bathrooms that are within walking distance of my office regularly have the cleaning ladies in them – all the time! Chatting on the phone or with each other if there’s more than one. I can understand it, I really can. If there isn’t much work going on it’s not like they have an office to sit in like I do, but still! It means that you have to engage in even more perfunctory small talk just to have empty your bladder for heaven’s sake! Granted it’s little more than a “hello, how are you?” and a “goodbye” when leaving, but in a day when I have already had 100 other meaningless conversations that absolutely do not need to happen and when I’m at GRUMPCON 3 and rising, that is one more nothing interaction that makes me want to scream and long for the days when I would sit in desolate slump for hours on end, staring at the fake company on the TV screen and wishing with all my might for one little meaningless conversation or unnecessary, nothing interaction.

Finally A Bank Account

At the start of the month I opened my bank account.

Not terribly exciting, one might think, but everything is kind of exciting here because it more often than not opens up whole new, hitherto unimagined, worlds of red tape, complications, form filling, pencil pushing, first born promising and frustration of the sort that makes you want to rip the skin off your face with your fingernails.

First I have to mention the unusual quirk they have here of wanting you to keep a substantial sum in your bank account at all times, lest they charge you for going under that amount. This sum varies from bank to bank and from account to account. I have noted a low of AED200 for a very basic account which is essentially keeping your cash under your mattress but without the convenience of having it so easily accessible, and a high of AED10,000 which, presumably, entitles you to bank statements printed on gold-leaf and having a unicorn nuzzle your neck to ease your tension whenever you grace the branch with your presence. This practice doesn’t make any sense to me, because surely, if you thought you were going to drop below the standing amount, the logical thing to do would be to take all your money out and close the account, rather than sit immobile while you get charged for daring to use your own money! You should be ashamed!!!!

Then, there are the women’s accounts.* Aside from getting to choose which pretty picture you want on your debit card, there are benefits to women only accounts – but it’s a shame the benefits are only for women. The premise is that a woman will either not be earning her own money, and instead be provided for by the significant male in her life at that point (father/husband), will be a secondary earner in the household and probably not earning as much as the significant male in her life and that the account holder may not have a regular amount entering the account on a regular schedule. In this country, all quite reasonable assumptions. What this means for the account holder is that there is often a much reduced standing amount (if any) though quite probably a reduced interest rate to go along with it.

There is no stipulation about who may open one of these women’s accounts, apart from that you are a woman. And so, due to my somewhat unstable employee status I opened one myself!

I picked a bank that seemed to be the least sneaky with hidden charges (some will charge you every time you use your bank card, either at an ATM or in a shop, they will charge you for using the counter service, they will charge you for having a cheque book and for using a cheque, they will charge you for daring to want to dirty up their nice clean bank by keeping all your filthy money in it and for merely existing… ok I exaggerate, but only about the bank being clean), but this came with a price. They are only open between 8am and 2pm. Bit of an inconvenience since I start work at 8am but hey ho, they are open on Saturdays so not too much of andrama as long as I don’t have any urgent banking matters that cannot wait until the weekend.

I digress. Never one to be daunted in the face of needing to make a little extra effort (stop sniggering in the back – I can hear you!) I tootled along on a Saturday morning with passport in hand to become a proper grown up person who can take charge of her own money! Woohoo!

It all started smoothly enough, although the nice woman who would ultimately open my account for me was adamant that she describe – in a not altogether descriptive manner – the different kinds of current accounts that the bank provides, even though I’d done my research and picked the kind of account that I want. She was most successful in confusing me and sending my little brain round in circles. That over and done with I filled in my forms, handed over my passport for photocopying, got myself a pay slip and handed AED150 in cash to the teller. AED100 as a minimum deposit to open the account and AED50 for my debit card… well you can’t expect something for nothing now, can you?! So simple, so quick. I was delighted.

With that all nicely sorted, I was a little surprised to get a call the next day from the woman who opened my account. Apparently there were some things that were neglected (I’d be raising an eyebrow now if I could) when I initially opened the account. Some extra information about me was needed and though she could take that information over the phone I needed to sign the form to authorize the amendments. Sigh. Also, for some reason I’m not wholly convinced about (she said something about her boss and audits), I had to provide a salary certificate. Oh boy.

It takes a couple of days but I get my salary certificate through from Dubai, and despite it having my title as “Miss” it refers to me using the masculine 3rd person singular throughout. It also is missing a rather essential decimal point resulting in my salary certificate certificating that I earn an absolute mint! Ha. I wish. Hoping for the best (and already regretting not using a little biro magic to address that decimal point issue) I take it to the bank as soon as the place opens the next day.

After more palaver involving trying to explain there aren’t “departments” in my four person office, pleading that the salary certificate be accepted even though it reads like it’s been written by a baboon that had a school-leavers diploma waved in it’s general direction, providing a full UK address and phone number (even though I DON’T LIVE THERE ANY MORE!) and my bra size I was told that, Insha’allah, my bank card would be ready for me by the weekend.

Ee gads. Luckily the card was ready by the weekend and I had my May wage paid into my account so I can now spend virtual money to my heart’s content. Whoop!


In case any one was wondering what has been happening to my salary before this momentous occasion… I had it paid into O’s account, which meant that I regularly felt like the little woman saying something very much like “Darling, I need to buy some frivolous women’s things like kittens and parasols – hand over the ATM card!”

Adventures in banking this certainly was not. But I was very, very excited to have that little text telling me I’ve been paid.



*Don’t even ask about the accounts that conform to the Islamic code of interest/profit earning. I just cannot get my head around them at all – but they do exist and indeed entire banks operate based on it.

Foreigner's Adventures This Weekend

Cast your mind back a wee while, if you will, and recall our last adventures at sea.

Ah it seems so long ago now that we traipsed across the sea bed like some ancient mariners walking forth into the unknown after the tide betrayed us leaving our trusty vessel sand-banked, avoiding the urchins and me trying not to lose my flip-flops. All fun and games.


This past weekend saw us on another adventure, only this time it was more… prolonged.


It started innocently enough (as these things so often do *sigh*). It was proposed that a bunch of people get together and camp overnight on one of the islands surrounding Abu Dhabi. Nothing is ever really far away in Abu Dhabi so if the worst came to the worst we could always just hop on the boat and be safely back on terra-firma within half an hour, max. Mmmmhmmmmmm.

O, being the BBQ king that he is, was persuaded to deal with the food so our weekend began with four hours in the kitchen preparing and marinating 8kgs of meat and sundries (the sundries were my job – salads basically). All well and good, there were to be 16 of us after all! Plus the destination island comes complete with a public grill. Sorted.

We were a little late in leaving the dock in the first place, but it wasn’t too much of a problem in the grand scheme of things since we were spending the night. Anyhoo – we arrive at the island-with-grill only to find it is overrun with jet-skiers! This will not do since we wanted to swim and it is hazardous to ones health to be swimming where there are jet-skiers about. So we push on and find ourselves a nice little deserted island (I say deserted but there was a permanent camp a little way down the beach, lights, air-con, satellite!) and proceed to unload our stuff. A minor problem arises when it dawns upon the group that there is no grill on this beach, but “not to worry!” cries our captain – we have disposable BBQ thingies a-plenty. A-ha! Disaster narrowly averted.

While the captain went back to fetch some other soon-to-be-islanders, the rest of us proceeded to make camp. Having selected an area that was out of the wind, flat enough for our stuff to stay where we put it and far enough away from the apparent tide mark we happy few set out tables and chairs and some beach mats, constructed a tent or four, laid out the food, opened a bottle of sparkling grape-juice (ahem) and began the chilling out process.

When the captain finally came back (complete with one islander who brought a suitcase with wheels in which he had packed a shaving kit, cologne, pillows and a duvet – yes, there was much sniggering behind hands as we watched him dragging his case across the sand) it was getting dark so it seemed wise to get on with the BBQ. Two small disposable BBQs materialised. Allow me to remind you that we had a hella lot of meat to cook. O gamely gave it a shot but we realized after about an hour that it really wasn’t going to work. Added to the distinct lack of decent heat source was the issue of there being no light source! There were a couple of lanterns, but no wicks. There were some of those tiki torches, but not enough lighter fluid to keep them alight. While a giant search light was charging on the boat we had to make do with a little torch with dying batteries being shared between the BBQ and the camp-fire construction.

In the end it all got to be too much of a faff so we wrapped the meat in foil and threw it on the camp-fire to what it would. Turns out that you can cook alright food using this technique, but it doesn’t rival a good grilling.


After eating, the captain had to disappear again as there were a number of people not spending the night. I’d say, ooooh, maybe an hour after he left is when we noticed that the tide was coming in. And I’d give it maybe five minutes more before we realized that we were going to get flooded. Yup, flooded. The tide was coming in at a ridiculous rate and because we were on a flat there was no question of what the inevitable outcome would be if we didn’t act quickly.

I would not recommend having only two people while trying to shift the camping gear of seven people up a sand-dune* with the tide biting at your heels. I would suggest having at least twelve people to do that job. Sadly there were only five of us on the island at that stage and three weren’t at camp when the tide arrived. So O and I shleped as much as we could up the beach before the other three raced back and we all got it up the dune just. in. time! The camp-fire was gone, but the night was warm and we five waded out into the – now much nearer – water to wash the sweat off and play with the phosphorous. (My theory is that it is water angels and I do not want to be told any different thankyouverymuch.)

Four hours after leaving us, the captain and two other islanders got back and I promptly went to bed.


The next morning was early. At about 6am I awoke to find myself a sleeping bag wrapped dim sum in a tent-shaped bamboo steamer. Luckily there was a flask of coffee (vanilla and hazelnut flavoured!) and water that wasn’t yet at an undrinkable temperature. I was looking forward to a quick swim and then packing up to go home. Surely no one would really want to hang around after the farce of the night before.

From our vantage point on top of the sand dune the boat was clearly visible. As was the water. The boat. And the water. Or should I say:

The boat <-----------------------------------------------> And the water.

With the boat moored in sand and the sea somewhat further away from the boat than would be useful to facilitate us going home there could be only one conclusion. We were beached. Again. Only this time in a slightly less than fun manner since we couldn’t walk across the sea bed and we’d spent a night on the island and wanted to go home. Plus it was getting hot and it was only 6:30/7am.

Fret not however, for I am writing this to you from a lovely comfortable air-conditioned room and not using smoke signals to get the message to someone who can post it for me. At about 8:30am one of the fishermen from down the beach wondered over to tell us that the tide probably wouldn’t be back in until 3 o’clock that afternoon. We elected to have breakfast then call the coast guard to rescue us.

Perhaps inevitably, breakfast didn’t happen (I can now firmly attest that you cannot cook scrambled egg in a tin-foil tray over a butane burner) and neither did the coast guard. The local fishermen from down the beach did, however, and they sped us back home with all our stuff while leaving the captain and his loyal wife with their ship – or more accurately in the air-conditioned tent of the fishermen where they got to play with some puppies for a few hours, by recent accounts.

We made it home by midday which was nice as we got to sleep a lot and still have a bit of the day left to eat, shower and unwind our nerves which were like corkscrews by that stage.

Sadly, it was a less than happy ending for the captain. The previous nights tide was a “spring” tide which only occurs once a month when there is either a full moon or new moon – we had the new moon one – and is unusually high for only one night. Even though he anchored the boat quite far out from the beach, it was dark when he did so and was not quite far out enough. The kindly fishermen told him to go away for the night since the tide wouldn’t be coming back in for a looooong while, after dark they called some of their friends out and they dragged and floated the boat while the tide was just about high enough. The next day after work they called the captain to say his boat was in the water, cooked him supper when he arrived to pick it up and sent him on his way again.


I may complain on occasion about this place and the distinctly odd way in which things are often done. One thing I will never be able to praise enough, however, is the incredible generosity and hospitality of the Emiratis. Especially when it comes to stranded strangers.




*I use the term “dune” loosely, it was more like a sand-shelf but it was high and difficult to climb while pulling a tent so “’dune” will suffice.

George Michael and Alicia Keys

Any musical event that takes place tends to draw a large crowd, no matter who it is it would seem! The latest was George Michael, with Alicia Keys as his special guest. Not being a big George Michael fan I would not have spent the money to go to the concert, but when a couple of tickets fell in to my lap it seemed rude not to go along (especially since I had very eager company).

We got there a little late, so missed the first song by Alicia Keys whilst in the queue for the ladies. Miss Keys was pretty good. She looked fab, sounded better and had nice interaction with the crowd. However her songs were rather samey and her set seemed to last an eternity! For what I considered to be a warm-up act she was on stage for more than an hour, far too long in my opinion. Her band and backing singers had to persuade the crowd to keep applauding for the obligatory encore, which led me to believe that the crowd weren’t actually all that desperate to have her back on stage.

When Keys had finished, there was an announcement that George Michael would be on in half an hour and that his performance would be in two parts. Half an hour! Now I thought that it would be more prudent to come on whilst the crowd was all fired up rather than making them wait for half an hour getting grumpy – but then I’m not an international superstar so what do I know…

Half an hour dragged on and then the man himself came on stage. The first half of his show was pretty entertaining. The graphics on the set were enchanting and there was a good vibe even though Michael didn’t interact with the crowd at all. After 45 minutes he ran off stage and the display flashed up with the message “Back in 19.59” 20 minutes until he was coming back onstage. 20 minutes!!! To be honest I’d had enough by that stage and was very ready to head home, but we stuck it out… unfortunately.

The second half was dire. Boring and lifeless. Michael talked to the crowd a little bit this time, but only because he needed to do something while the band was being moved from the back to the front of the stage. Another 45mins/hour and he was done. But off course there were to be encores. And not just the one either. We stayed for the first, but then some people sitting near us said they had heard him rehearsing Happy Birthday (on the 4th it was 37 years of independence and unity of the UAE) and I’d heard that he was going to duet with Alicia Keys so we decided to beat the crowd and try to get a cab back.
It was gone 1am by this time and I could take no more.

It was a fun evening, and I’m glad I went along because it’s something different but I dislike ego and there was a hella lot of ego there that night.