The Expat Wife's Prerogative

I don’t often take full advantage of the fact that I have no set working hours and can take time off whenever the mood takes me, but on Friday afternoon I luxuriated in one of the benefits of life as an expat wife. I set aside the entire afternoon to chilling out in the garden with a fellow Expat WAG and my good friend, Sauvignon Blanc. There’s got to be some benefits to living in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles away from friends and family, and this is certainly one of them. This may surprise many of you, but I hadn’t indulged in such an afternoon before – I suppose I have always assumed that I would be assuaged by the guilty knowledge that I was enjoying myself with gay abandon whilst The Husband was hard at work. I did have a few guilt-ridden thoughts of him slaving away as I leant back against the cushions and sipped my vino but I figured, as the one who washes and irons his clothes, cleans the house, cooks all his meals and does all the shopping, on top of trying to launch my own career as a writer, I was entitled to a bit of me-time. And, being Friday afternoon, it was practically the weekend anyway. Who really works on Friday afternoons?


It also meant that I was extra-specially nice to him when he came home. He was treated to a hug, a kiss and a beaming smile at the front door when normally he gets a shouted ‘hello!’ from the other side of the house. There’s no lipstick touch-ups or ribbon in the hair for him normally (or ever, to be honest – he’s lucky to find me with even a slick of mascara most days. I live in the desert – who’s going to notice?!). So I started the weekend early and had a lovely afternoon with a bite of lunch, a bottle (and a half) of some very nice wine and a good three and a half hours of girly chat. I'm not going to feel guilty about it - sometimes a girl needs that, especially in Karratha.