Tag Archives: Ramadan

The Inbetween

So we have just arrived home from a glorious 11 days in Tuscany, back to Dubai, Ramadan, blistering 45 degree heat and school holidays. Let me tell you, there is no greater shock to the system. I knew it was coming: on our final day we stumbled across the beautiful village of Montepulciano and sat in the sunshine eating lunch and sipping on a fine glass of vino, when from a shady corner a saxophone quartet burst into life, playing Carmen and Debussy amongst others. It literally bought tears to my eyes halfway through my Caprese when I realised it doesn’t matter how much we make the most of where we live, beautiful moments like this will never, ever happen here. We left Montepulciano and arrived at our hotel to find another mini music concert being set up for the evening, entitled ‘Love and Roses’. It was suitably corny – bongo drums and guitars accompanied italian-accented versions of Stevie Wonder and Judy Garland, and a couple of sopranos attempted the British Airways theme tune – but again, not exactly something you’d see pop up in the Madinat any time soon. Sigh.

We are pasta fat-tastic too, after gorging on all the fresh ham, cheese and vegetables we could lay our hands on. We drank our own bodyweights in Chianti. And of course, all this in the company of our family, playing volleyball in the pool, enjoying the sculptures littering the gardens of our villa and wandering through the great cities of Florence and Sienna. It was heaven, a tonic to the past month or so which has been hectic and stressful in any number of different ways.

But now we’re back. And Dubai, by contrast, is horrific. The traffic is awful, our friends are all gone and the air is heavy with heat and sand. This week reminds me an awful lot of the Summer That Shall Not Be Named, when I was eight months pregnant and stranded here in splendid isolation. Except I have a near-four year old now to occupy and a hell of a lot of writing to get done, and as it’s Ramadan I’m completely without daytime trips to coffee shops and lunches which is making things drag a little, to put it mildly. But unlike the Summer That Shall Not Be Named, I get to escape again in less than a week, to England’s green and pleasant land. And I don’t care if there is a heatwave or perpetual rain when I arrive, I will have another wonderful month of music, flowers, food, friends and family to soak up before we return.

Bring on the summer (not)

English: Glass of rosé Français : Verre de rosé

Summer coping mechanism no.1(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Shame. On. Me.

Life has once again got in the way of blogging. I was reminded for the third Monday in a row that I have failed to write a single thing this month by the arrival of my fellow bloggers’ weekly summaries dropping into my inbox, and decided the time was ripe for plonking my first-born in front of Jake and the Neverland Pirates to post something, anything before yet another week flew by.

So here we are. For the eighth year in a row the summer has arrived in the space of 24 hours and caught everyone by surprise at just how hot it is, again. Why is it such a shock every year? I feel caught in some sort of Groundhog Day-meets-eternal sunshine of the spotless mind moment and while my brain struggles to come to terms with the fact that it really is very bloody hot out there, I am also panicking at my laissez-faire approach to summer planning which has inadvertently left me with a 4 year old and nothing to do for fourteen days in the middle of July, during Ramadan, in 45 degree heat and 80% humidity, with no one around, while I am trying to churn out a masters degree.

Bad planning, yes. The road to crazyville, sure. But this year I am trying a different approach. Instead of going very quickly insane for lack of human contact over the age of 4, I’m going to attempt to attack the issue head on. This involves spending large amounts of money on trips to the aquarium, dolphinarium, soft play centre, aquaplay, little explorers, the cinema, ski Dubai and quite possibly the ice rink, and swigging copious bottles of water in the toilets instead of hanging out in Neros. Not ideal, but it’s the best I can do. Weekends will, as a result, not resemble anything remotely like family time, but instead be a combination of tapping away at the computer and taking child free time in a dark room while my troubles are massaged away to dolphin music and my face is recreated as a wrinkle free, stress free, pimple free masterpiece. (WTF is the thing with wrinkles and spots, ladies? No one told me that was going to happen)  Evenings will alternate between frantic deadline driven scribbling and light consumption of rosé wine at the golf club to soothe away the day whilst still being able to face the next one. My theory is, take one day at a time, throw money at the problem, find things to make the boy smile, work hard and fast to get the writing done, try to forget the bit where I am melting, and have at least one adult conversation every day.

It won’t be the perfect plan, I know. There will be days when I am sure me and my son will be screeching at each other in splendid isolation, and times when I wish the work would do itself so we can escape to the uk sooner than planned, and moments where i think i will go completely mad from heat and lonliness. But an evening swim can do wonders, and a night out with DH to celebrate Iftar will be something we haven’t done together in years, and you never know, ice skating might be fun.

And when all else fails, you can’t go wrong with a bit of Jake and the Neverland Pirates.