Sipping a cocktail by our shared pool, it is difficult to imagine that life in Dubai could be tough. The biggest lifestyle compromise my husband and I have had to make since arriving from London (me) and Baghdad (him) is disguising our Tom Collinses in children’s beakers so as not to offend our non-drinking neighbours.

We handled our relocation ourselves. Looking back, it seems we chose to make things tough despite having the means to make it easy. We would have saved a lot of frustration and time looking for ministries and utility offices, applying for residency visas and drivers licences.