Tag Archives: Middle East
Bog Blog: It’s a Matter of Convenience…
My mother’s favourite sayings about not doing housework went down rather well with readers last week (you’re clearly all just as slovenly as I am), so here’s another of her wonderful maxims that made me the woman I am today: “Never pass a toilet without using it.” Now, it’s probably sensible to take this one with a …
Opposite, Above and Beyond: Ponderments from a Balcony
From my fourth floor apartment’s balcony I have a spectacular view of… someone else’s balcony. In our particular part of town, the apartment blocks are packed together so snugly that, should one choose to sit on the balcony and soak up some sun (for the seventeen minutes a day when it isn’t eclipsed by other …
How to Cope with Homesickness: Top Ten Nostalgic Puddings
There are many different ways of coping with homesickness. One option is to indulge it completely by eating buttery toasted crumpets and sobbing to an episode of Countryfile. At the other end of the willpower spectrum we have the healthier, low-fat option: ignore the homesickness completely, go exploring, and lose yourself in the ‘otherness’ of …
The Perils of Pigeon English
You can only really ask someone to repeat something twice (or, in an emergency, three times) before you have to just smile, nod politely and issue a non-committal, “Mmmm”. Over here the vast majority of the population go through every day speaking their second or third language and this can result in some quite extraordinary misunderstandings. I …
It’s beginning to look a bit like Christmas…
I am feeling VERY Christmassy. To be honest with you, I have been restraining myself from writing a festive piece for the last few weeks. I can generally hold it in until at least the sixteenth or so of December, but I really have been feeling ridiculously Christmassy for some time now and I think …
It’s all a bit Ozymandias…
It’s funny really. I potter along out here, making the best of things, trying to immerse myself in this new life, but every now and then I recognise the truth of my situation, in much the same way that a short-sighted pigeon might encounter the truth of a French window. Here it is: basically I …
Global Village: The Answer to World Peace?
One of the happiest places out here (and possibly on the entire planet) is Global Village. I suppose one could describe it as a sort of cultural theme park (I know that doesn’t sound fun, but bear with me). Surrounded by desert, a twenty minute drive from the city, it consists of many brightly decorated …
Noises Off
Of all the different sounds there are to wake up to – a tuneful dawn chorus, the dulcet tones of Radio 4, the miaow of a hungry cat or the gentle snoring of one’s better half – I would say construction noise from a nearby building site is one of the least pleasant. And out …
WELCOME to all those who are fed up, foot-sore or far from home…
This is Homesick and Heatstruck, a blog about coping with my displaced (or misplaced?) existence. For three years now I have lived in a noisy city in the middle of a desert, 4000 miles away from home. One might think that the pangs of homesickness would wane after a while, but one would be quite …
