It was literally hours before I was due at the airport to return to Abu Dhabi when I got the phone call to say that there was a strong possibility that we were getting transferred to another country. Slow to invite disappointment into my life, I hesitantly asked as to where the new location…
It’s only natural that the longer you live abroad the more distant you may become from your friends in Ireland. Apart from the physical distance creating a wedge in the friendship the difference in lifestyle can also too see old friends meeting up and having a little less in common than they did when they…
The United Arab Emirates celebrate their National Day on the 2nd December. The celebration lasts for at least two days and this year marks the forty first anniversary of their formal independence from the United Kingdom. Almost everywhere throughout the UAE houses, shops and even cars are adorned with the colours of national flag, black,…
Folks in Abu Dhabi are chomping at the bit waiting for the temperatures to drop below 40°c. It is over the coming weeks that the temperatures will start the steady decline to a tolerable 35°, next stop an enjoyable 30° and then the glorious 25° plateau which will be the temperature all winter long, dipping…
The sheer abandonment of strict censorship in Ireland takes a little digesting when one is used to the stringent laws and social rules around sex and general innuendo in Abu Dhabi. So back in Ireland for summer, it impossible not to notice the many puns and plays that exist in marketing and advertising for general…
A shopping trip with the girls wouldn’t have in the past been my idea of a great day out but when the trip was to Dubai and was sure to include a posh nosh lunch and the chance to swan around the glitzy Dubai shopping malls I couldn’t resist. One of the pearls in the…
Back in the glory days in Ireland when the Celtic tiger breathed life into Ireland and inflated not only economic growth but also our expectations and quality of life, we enjoyed custom made designer kitchens, Canadian hardwood floors and Italian leather sofas. Everyone suddenly became experts on the differences between porcelain floor tiles and carrera…
As the school year comes to a close and most expat women take the children to greener pastures, the grapple for nursery places is at a high in Abu Dhabi before the wild birds flee. Unlike Ireland where children start nursery at the age of “whenever the government provide the free year” and big school…
“Enter a vanished and unjust world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren’t trusted not to steal the silver…” Reads the synopsis on the back of the book I’ve just started for my book club on Tuesday night. The Help, hit the shelves with a bang and shortly after made it…
June in Abu Dhabi and the temperature is rising to unbearable levels, accompanied only by the sickening humidity which means that for 99% of expat wives the pressure is on….. To be thin, tanned and toned before going home for the summer. Such was the underlying conversation at a recent coffee morning, where I seemed…
thereluctantemigrant 