MOST RECENT POSTS

The Trailing Spouse is Dead

"I don't care what you call me!" she wrote in the comments. "Who cares?! If a few words is all it takes to upset you I worry for you" she went on. "Okay you fat ugly heiffer" someone replied. Except they didn't because that would be really rude wouldn't it? We teach our children not to comment on people's bodies, to see the beauty within, … [Read More...]

I come to you from Bali…

I come to you from Bali. From a make believe world of plunge pools day-time naps and domestic paladins who appear each morning to wash breakfast dishes, make beds, remove laundry and then disappear on scooters into the tropical sunset. It's day three possibly four, I've lost count. I'm now at the sunscreen for make-up and bathers for underwear … [Read More...]

Friendship through the back door

I met a girlfriend for lunch, I was once again running late with the snowballing chaos which accompanies it. Cursing at the google map I realised my time of arrival was not just late but bordering on rude. I raced up the stairs of the hotel and made … [Read More...]

I Might Not Remember Your Name

We've been trying to piece our different recollections of our last Bangkok trip into one seamless story but after 20 years the details are a little hazy. We keep having conversations that sound eerily familiar to how I remember G's parents talking … [Read More...]

Expat Women

I've been back in Doha for almost two weeks and like any return there's the inevitable comparison of what's different, what has changed. For the two years I've been away Doha hasn't slowed down - with a World Cup on the horizon there's the constant … [Read More...]

Just About Done

I don't know about you, but I'm just about done and unfortunately I'm not talking about Christmas shopping. Covid has finally got me. Not in the viral bedridden sense, that's yet to come, but the fatigue of the what comes next hit me hard(er) … [Read More...]

Vale The Beagle

My sister told me the story as I was driving, we were both on speaker phone. She was talking about an older couple, people she's close to, the couple had fallen in love later in life. Both had adult children on opposite sides of the world. He was … [Read More...]

Breaking the Marriage Rules

Picture this, your marriage has its own personal umpire. The umpire is there to make sure none of the cardinal rules are broken. And when I say rules it's more than in sickness and in health. It's the down and dirty, the murky stuff that we know is … [Read More...]

A broken heart

It was in January of this year that I first had an inkling there was something wrong with my heart. There were tests, angiograms and monitors, more tests, and then finally a triuphant call from my cardioligist. As I puffed my way up the steep incline … [Read More...]

The Death of a Memory

My mother in law has a rich cache of memories that find their way easily into a conversation - a walk on the beach, a cup of tea in a comfortable chair, or on the bleachers of a child's baseball game. Her stories span from a rural childhood riding a … [Read More...]

Beware the Professional Parenting Expert

*My welcome address at the Parenting and Toddler Forum in Doha on March 2nd 2019* Hello there, I’m Kirsty Rice - some of you may know me from a website called 4 kids, 20 suitcases and a beagle - others from the expat podcast Two Fat Expats - and … [Read More...]

The Expat Holding Pattern

Definition of a holding pattern. 1 : the usually oval course flown (as over an airport) by aircraft awaiting clearance especially to land. 2 : a state of waiting or suspended activity or progress I was flying into London to meet my husband G who'd … [Read More...]