A window on their world

A few days ago, I had another appointment with my doctor to talk about my post-natal depression. There's good news on that score: I'm feeling much better and I'm coming off the tablets in a month's time.

My doctor is a lovely Muslim woman from the Lebanon. She wears brightly coloured clothes that always reach to her wrists and ankles, and a head scarf, quite often in a pretty fabric. On this particular visit we had time to chat as her assistant was making a meal out of sorting out my insurance eligibility.

I can't remember how it started, but we got to talking about women wearing the abaya (black full body gown) and veil here. My doctor told me about dress rules in her home country. She says that many Muslim women there don't wear any kind of head covering at all. My doctor actually didn't cover her head until she had her children. She apparently took the head scarf into hospital with her when she was in labour, and put it on as she left. For her, it was an important sign to the outside world about how things had changed for her, and how seriously she was taking her faith.

It was interesting to hear her views on women wearing the veil. Where we live, many local women do. My doctor's view is that this is a cultural decision, rather than a religious one. Their families and friends all do it, and so it continues. Interestingly, my doctor said it often unnerved her. She said she found standing next to a fully veiled woman in public toilets made her think that there could possibly be a man underneath the outfit! I'd never thought of it that way. Luckily, most women unveil in toilets, as far as I've seen.

For me, it's more an issue of not being able to see a person's whole face when they're speaking to me. It's odd not being able to read someone's expression. My son was at the doctors' the other day and a lovely lady in a veil was making clucking noises at him, and, I think, smiling. However, he started to cry - all he could see was a black veil and couldn't understand where the sound was coming from. I guess he'll learn, growing up here!

I read an interesting comment online the other day by a Muslim woman who wears a Hijab, asking about arrangements for an all-woman dinner. She was asking whether it would be like the Muslim weddings she's been to here, where all camera phones are banned and all the waiters are women. This was because she wanted to "dress up" (i.e wear a ball gown and make-up, something I know women here love to do at special events. The shops are full of glamourous gowns!) She was worried that her photo would get taken and that a photo of her uncovered would appear online somewhere. It just seemed such an alien concern, and yet of course very real.

Just a few windows on their world. Fascinating.

The horrors of Mastitis

A few days ago, I woke up in the morning feeling achey all over. I realised I felt like I had the flu. Then, I realised my right breast hurt like hell. What followed then was, in fact, two days of complete hell.

When I read about Mastitis, I thought it was just a painful boob. But no - it affected my whole being. I had the shivers, the sweats, exhaustion, raging fever, and, finally, vomiting. Added to this, my husband was flying for part of the time, and trying to look after our 9 month old baby (who can now crawl!) whilst feeling at death's door was almost impossible. But, as they say, you cope because you have to.

I'm now feeling a lot better, thanks to some very strong antibiotics and painkillers. It was my first experience of feeling very ill indeed since becoming a Mummy, and it was really, really hard. I know I'm not the first woman to go through it, but cripes, it was nasty.

The expat family trap

We're now back home in the sandpit after a lovely long break in the UK. It was a real tonic to see some snow, some ice, and yes, even a bit of rain (although I have to say we're rather glad to be back in the land of blue sky again - there's only so much cold weather you can enjoy!) And of course it was also very special spending Christmas with our families.

But having said that...

...It's absolutely incredible how difficult it can be staying with your family for long periods of time!

I've come to the conclusion that it's an inevitable part of the expat experience that your family becomes a thorny issue. After all, you can't just drive to see them for a weekend - the only chance you have is during either annual leave or during a visit they make to see you. Either option is very full-on - there are no half-measures. This means you spend all day, every day together, and obviously this isn't always going to work. In our case, both our families are hard to deal with for extended periods of time. Add to this our son, who is now officially everyone's favourite family member, and you get a difficult cocktail. Everyone wants to see our son for as long as possible.

For example - on our recent trip, we spent a week with my parents and a week with my husband's father. For our third week, we went to stay in a cottage in Cornwall for some very crucial time for just the three of us. Half-way through the week, my Mum rang us up and basically demanded that we should end that holiday early so that we could spend an extra night with them before we flew off from Heathrow. An extra night, that is, on top of the night we were already planning to spend with them before we left. I refused, saying that despite loving her and my Dad very much, our holiday time was precious too. She was pretty grumpy about it, but accepted it. It was just an upset we could have done without.

It's a very difficult issue from all sides. Obviously we want to see our families. We love them, and we miss them. But we also want some holidays to ourselves, and more to the point, to places other than the UK! Talking of which, we're off for a week in the sun together in March. We can't wait...

I wonder if any other expats out there are having a similar experience?

Clearly cheating pilots are an internet obsession

Today, I published the 50th comment on this post, which I wrote in January two years ago. In it, I put forward my by now rather well rehearsed treatise on why you can't tar all pilots with the same brush, and that, crucially, ALL PILOTS DO NOT CHEAT.

Little did I know how popular it would be. It's clearly very Googleable (is that a word now? Probably.) Stats show it's my most visited post ever. The 50 comments that follow are an interesting read. They're by no means all the comments I've received - I've rejected ones that named specific people, for example, because I felt that wasn't fair, and there's one particular correspondent who keeps sending in rather illiterate rants about female Cabin Crew which, by and large, I reject.

Still, it's fascinating that it's taken on a life of its own. The internet is indeed an interesting place...