It’s hot. Don’t fight it.

As a self-proclaimed warm-weather-lover, I came to Dubai from Australia with what I thought was an advantage. I already liked the heat (by which I meant anything up to mid-30s. Aah, the naivety). That had to put me ahead of those who preferred warm coats and log fires. Right?

Well, predictably, no.

Wrong.

I’ve come to believe that people who grew up in freezing cold climates, who are used to shutting themselves in for half the year, are at a massive advantage here in Dubai.

Close the doors and windows, turn on the air and sit tight for the day? No problem. The only outings you can take are to air-conditioned malls? Hey ho, we’re used to it. Organise ‘indoor play’ for three active children for a weekend? Sure, got this. A week? A month? An eleven-week summer holiday block at 50 degrees, with Ramadan thrown in for triple points?

Well, no one likes it, but some people manage better than others.

As in, me. They manage better than I do.

But I am – slowly – learning. So as I approach my third hot season in Dubai, I decided to share a few things I’ve come to understand about surviving summer.

Don’t fight it

After I arrived, as the weather warmed up, I persisted in doing things my way. Windows and doors always open for ‘fresh air’. Dinner at the outside table. A morning trip to the beach.

The trouble is, an open window can’t catch a breeze that was never there. And even if it was, the houses are designed to be unbreachable bunkers of refrigerated atmosphere. Air-flow is the exact opposite of what they promote.

And no matter how much iced water you drink, dinner in the garden at 38 degrees is no fun for anyone. Ditto swimming in the intensely salty, bath-like waters of the Arabian Gulf in July.

Just give in. You can’t win.

Sometimes more is less

To my mind, a floaty summer dress is just the thing for a hot day. Uh huh. Rookie error. If you actually have to do anything – walk, carry stuff, drive a car – you will sweat. A lot. And sensitive Celtic skin like mine (and my children’s) will come out in every kind of fiery rash you can think of. So now I try to dress to absorb sweat. T-shirts with fitted sleeves to protect my underarms, leggings to protect my (ahem) legs. I even get a rash from the rubber strap of my flip-flop. (I’m Australian, so I want to say ‘thong’ here, but then everyone will be wondering about my rash from another kind of thong, and I really don’t want that.) I even have to make sure there is fabric between my décolletage and my seatbelt if I don’t want a terrible itchy blotch just under my neck.

Over-sharing? Just telling it like it is…

Re-invent exercise

I could probably just sit in stunned silence for the five very hot months, but the kids don’t really go for that. And it would give new meaning to the words ‘sedentary lifestyle’. So we have developed some strategies to keep active.

For instance, every summer my eldest son turns the dining table around against the wall and uses it for table tennis. Genius. I couldn’t care less about the inconvenient angle, the marks on the wall (they wash off) or the endless tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock of the ping-pong ball. At least he’s keeping busy. And he’s like a dog – he needs ball sports at least once a day.

I try to walk or swim as early in the morning as I can, except for the very hottest months. It’s about the only way you can connect with nature during this time, and its good for the soul.

Also, I’ve forsaken the expensive local gym to do stretch classes at home via my laptop instead. At least two of my children have pledged to join me daily when the holidays begin. That’s exercise, an hour or so killed, hopefully a bit of fun, and it’s free!

My friend Inga told me that last summer, heavily pregnant, she would sit in the empty mall (it was Ramadan) drinking water (which she was allowed to do because she was very obviously pregnant) and say to her two little boys, “Run!” They would peg it up and down the halls of commerce for a couple of hours, then go home tired and happy. So clever!

Finally

I've learned you can never drink too much water, but I still haven't learned not to set up elaborate indoor play my kids are too old for (e.g. something from here - I really want to do that Entrapment break-in scene one).

So what is your best strategy to cope with the weather?

Top 11 things I have learnt from living in Dubai (so far)

I haven’t been here long (in the scheme of things) but, boy, it’s been intense. I can only compare a couple of years lived overseas to the first year or two of being a parent: a crash course that exposes your own ignorance and personal failings while cramming your head full of stuff you never thought you’d want to know.

So here’s my off-the-top-of-my-head list of things Dubai has taught me, to date. And given how quickly things change here, I’ll probably disagree with myself in six months’ time…

1. The bidet in my bathroom is an excellent place to wash my feet. I acknowledge the copyright of my friend Allison for this idea. (I still don’t understand why you would use it for its proper purpose. Who wants a wet bum?)

2. Speaking of bidets, the mess they make in public toilets has provided employment for thousands of women from developing countries. (So there is some point to them after all.) No public toilet is complete without two or three attendants, whose main function is to mop up, post-bidet use.

Not all bikini-wearers look like this...

3. Australian women are far more modest than I realised. One-piece swimsuits are reasonably common and available from all good swimwear retailers (unlike here). Everyone else – I mean everyone (except for covered Muslim ladies, naturally) – wears bikinis. Old, young, thin, fat, no problem. I have seen Russian grandmothers in skin-coloured bras and panties at the beach. I have seen obese German women wearing g-strings. Some cultures just don’t seem to have any hang-ups about their flesh... This is both a good and a bad thing. But hey ho, now I feel comfortable wearing one too. (It’s taken me this long to realise that no one is looking at me.)

4. Australians really do make the best coffee.

Poor effort. I've seen three...

5. Fast-talking Scots have the most impenetrable accents out of all nationalities (that’s you, CA), closely followed by Indians (especially over the telephone).

6. It is possible to pull up to three lawn mowers behind a bicycle.

7. Yogurt really does go with everything – bread, meat, fruit, vegetables...

8. You can never own too many pairs of cheap sandals. (I brought several pairs of heels with me from Australia and I haven't worn any of them. Not once. Meanwhile, I am keeping Carrefour in business by purchasing tons of crappy sandals and flip-flops (thongs for those of us who speak Australian). But don't tell my husband.

9. Dubai would never have been built if air conditioning hadn’t been invented. That is the plain fact of the matter.

10. I am really, really good at finding my way through strange places. I never knew that about myself until I came to a place where everyone else gets lost all the time. Suckers!

11. You can actually fall asleep while floating in very salty seawater. (Don’t ask me how I know this. I just do, okay?)



Dubaians, what have I missed??

It's in the bag: 5 things I can't leave home without

Living in Dubai has changed many things in my life, ranging from the obvious to the surprising. I expected that my days would be different (no job!), but didn’t expect I would spend them mostly driving (my least favourite activity in the whole world, behind even watching sport). I thought I’d dress differently, but didn’t know that would mean my jeans would go unworn for a year. I expected we would eat differently, but how could I have anticipated such things as cinnamon buns that come in cans?

And I gave no thought to what would become of the contents of my handbag. Of course, my wallet, phone and sunglasses are still there. Ditto the occasional discarded muesli bar from the kids and about a thousand receipts.

But there are now a few things I never leave home without, things that rarely featured in my handbag at home. Fortunately, it is a generously proportioned and capacious receptacle, with room for:

1. A water bottle, preferably filled. In Australia, there’s always a tap or a bubbler handy. I’ve long been a big hater of paying for bottled water (it’s about scrooginess as much as environmental responsibility), so would happily cup my hands under the nearest tap. And to be honest, I didn’t regularly spend whole days away from home/work/a friend’s house, where water was always available. Now that I roam the malls and streets of Dubai for hours at a time, I have to byo water or pay for it (the tap water here is iffy) and contribute to one of the worst recycling problems in the world. And if I don’t, the possibility of actual dehydration is very real. Bloody desert.

2. A scarf. Moving, as I do, from blasting desert heat to glacially arctic interiors, I often need protection from either the evil Dubai sun (scarves can shade your head as well) or the evil Dubai air conditioning. And there’s no predicting where you’ll get funny looks for daring to bare your shoulders.

3. Serious moisturiser. I’ve finally found it – the face cream that’s cheap, effective and doesn’t leave you feeling greasy. Nivea Crème. It’s so dense that it’s a bit like rubbing Sudocrem into your face (that’s nappy rash treatment, in case you don’t know), but it’s solved my lizard-lady problems like nothing else. Now it travels with me in case of a dry face emergency.

4. Talcum powder. The less said about this the better. All I can tell you is that heat rash can strike here at any time and talcum powder has proved a powerful weapon.

5. Small change. Oh my goodness. If I had a dirham for every time I was asked if I had a dirham… For some reason, everyone from the supermarket check-out chick to the assistant at the most upmarket fashion store (like I shop there all the time – ha!) is desperate for my small change. “Do you have coins, ma’am?” has to be one of the most common phrases uttered in this city. Get it together people.

Has anything changed in your handbag as your life changes around you?

Everything in moderation. Or not.

I am not a very balanced person. If you know me at all, you might have already come to that conclusion for your own reasons, but what I mean is I’m not very physically balanced.

I have the right side of a slightly bigger and more muscular woman, and the left side of a smaller, weaker one.

I have one foot a half a size bigger than the other, one leg longer than the other, one arm longer than the other and the difference in my hands has to be seen to be believed. (I would have supplied a pic so you would believe, but unfortunately, it's impossible to take a photo of your own hands while holding the camera with your knees. Apparently your tongue cannot activate the 'take photo' icon on the touch screen. Who knew?)

Some of it can be explained by just my right-handedness or my right-footedness (good to know for all those times when I might plan to kick a ball). My right forearm and bicep are stronger because of all those times I lifted the shopping, walked a dog, held a tennis racquet (it’s true, I did, once) or carried my school bag in my right hand.

But some of it is just a quirk of being human. There’s no other reason for the fact that in photos my right eye is just slightly more open than the other. Freaky.

In any case, I’m pretty sure I don’t have a case of hemihypertrophy (a congenital disorder where one side of the body is bigger than the other), because that’s really serious and I’ve managed to survive fine. Good word, though.

It even carries on right to the top – I’m telling you right now that I’m firmly right-brained. Try this cool test. I sat there for ages trying to and failing to get the dancer to turn the other way. In fact, I find it hard to believe that anyone could possibly see her go the other way. So if you do, you must be really weird.

So I’m unbalanced. That’s okay. But I’ve been thinking lately about our cultural obsession with balance. We talk about it, we strive for it, we complain when we don’t have it.

But is balance always a good thing? Is it okay to be a little bit (or a lot) out of kilter?

The reason I was thinking about it was because I had come to the conclusion that I had an addiction. It’s quite a nice addiction – it’s not physically reckless or unhealthy, it’s quite good for me and, because it’s not heroin or cream buns, it has actually garnered me quite a lot of approval over the years.

I just read a lot. By which I mean, an awful lot. Not a balanced amount at all.

Now, I read quality literature, of course, not rubbish, and I could argue the advantages of a good book for the rest of the day, if you like. Other people already have - see here, for instance. And because fiction has always been at least tangentially related to my area of study and work, I always have had a good excuse to pick up a book. Not that I ever needed an excuse.

But because I am using a second-hand bookshop to feed my need here in Dubai (yes, that’s House of Prose at Dubai Garden Centre. Tell them I sent you and I might get even more of a discount!) I am more aware of how much I’m reading each few weeks or so, since I have to lug them back in to swap them over for more half-priced goodies.

And it’s, frankly, embarrassing.

Even I don’t know how I manage to read that much. The bag of books doesn’t even include my Kindle purchases (which is another new way of keeping track of my reading.)

When I had my addiction met by freebies for review or borrowing from friends, it was less obvious how serious my obsession is.

And I guess I have to ask myself if there are better ways to use my time. Should I have a more balanced life?

Which leads back to my first question. Is an imbalance necessarily bad?

I know the eager athlete who gets up before dawn to hit the track or the pool would argue it is not. Ditto the artist deeply fixated on their work. Or even the mother absorbed in her new baby. From obsession comes greatness. Not always, but sometimes.

But what about the day-to-day, garden-variety, not-so-great obsessions? Am I wrong to feel (just slightly) guilty about my reading habit? I promise I get all the other big things done first (well, most of the time). I put my book down when the kids need me (usually with a sweet, loving, motherly smile on my face), I get dinner cooked (oh all right, occasionally with a book in my hand that does not contain recipes) and (back when I had a job) I didn’t read when I should have been writing (even though – with a pile of review copies on my desk – I so easily could have).

See how I justify myself?

I’m sure I’m not the only one whose guilty pleasure makes them a very unbalanced individual. What are your obsessions and how do you fit them into your life?

I shop therefore I am?

How do you define yourself?

Are you a gung-ho executive? Do you like to cook, to read, to play tennis?

Because no matter your hobbies or lifestyle, you can find a My Family sticker that sums you up in its own special, stick-figurey way.

There is no minority overlooked. There are farmers, soldiers, mums in wheelchairs, even a wild-looking lady with a wine glass.

Which begs the question: given the options, why is it that so many women, in fact, the overwhelming majority of My Family sticker-owning women (scientific research conducted by me from my car window), define themselves as… shoppers.

Over the last few years, since the My Family stickers exploded onto our roads to distract us during long car trips, I have been puzzling over this phenomenon. Most of the mothers in the family line-up are clutching shopping bags. I don’t think they are supposed to be representative of boring, old supermarket bags either. There is a joi-de-vivre about this figure that suggests she is on a spending spree at the mall, not buying the weekly family supplies.

I think what most disturbs me is not just that a lot of women like shopping. It’s that they feel comfortable proclaiming to the world: this is me.

And it’s not just in Australia. This majority holds true even here in the Middle East. (Although, I suppose if I didn’t want to hang around a bunch of women who defined themselves as ‘shoppers’, I shouldn’t have moved to Dubai.)

Evidence from the My Family website supports my observation. Shopping mum is their number one selling product, rated even higher on their website’s ‘most popular’ search than the generic ‘My Family’ sticker that goes underneath the figures on your rear window.

Interestingly, cats and dogs are more popular than any of the various children, although that may be because children have more hobbies than the average Rover or Fluffy, thereby splitting the sales between several common activities. Maybe we should lobby for stickers showing ‘dog catching ball’ or ‘cat on roller skates’, just to be fair.

Among other mothers, shopping mum is followed by two plain mums doing nothing, then one holding a laptop and phone, and then one with a pile of books (finally!).

Among the dads, the one at the barbecue (holding a beer) takes line honours, which I think is an encouraging sign that men are sharing the cooking at home (ha!). After that is a generic, do-nothing dad, then a home handy-man figure, followed by one holding a laptop. You gotta laugh – the laptop mum also juggles a phone at her ear but the My Family manufacturers must have not wanted to confuse poor laptop dad with too many things to do at once.

The girls’ stickers show ballet girl as the most popular among the little kiddies, which is fine (better than fine in my opinion), but the biggest selling older girl takes after her mum, with a phone and a handbag (uh oh). Talking and shopping are things we all do, to a greater or lesser degree, not a hobby. Someone should tell our daughters.

And what do boys do most? Well, apparently more of them play xbox than anything else.

Does anyone else find all this worrying?

When I was a kid, my mum painted in oils, my friend’s mum played tennis and I knew another mum who played guitar. None of them made shopping their principle leisure activity, nor did they eschew the whole of human culture to define themselves by what they could consume.

Personally, I don’t have My Family stickers on my car, but if I did I would like to design my own. I would have several arms like Shiva, holding books, a Bible, a paint brush, a coffee cup, a gardening fork and a mixing spoon, as my body strikes a yoga pose while standing on a beach. Confusing? No, just the fully rounded human being we all really are.

Don’t sell yourselves short, ladies.

Thoughts?