I don’t think I have mentioned it before, but I have joined a local literary circle or book-club. Well it could not be more different from my other, crazy, festively social book-club, where books are incidental and the wine and gossip is WAY more exciting than the literature. No, at Kutub we all read the same book, in either Arabic or English, and then we discuss it over fruit juice instead of wine. It’s very grown-up indeed, and very interesting 🙂
As unexpected as this wet, cloudy weather is I have to say that I am really enjoying it. Well for the most part anyway. Travelling around on the flooded streets is no fun at all, especially when people don’t slow down. Everyone knows that having your hazard lights on will instantly halve your stopping time so you don’t need to slow down, right?? Getting to work this week has been challenging, I always had an idea that desert sand was like beach sand, and so wouldn’t be muddy. Yeah right! The sand here seems to turn into something resembling soft porridge. Very sticky and sloppy. Thank goodness for 4 wheel drive. On the plus side though I am definitely getting braver, the large lake of water that stopped me just a week ago was no big deal on Wednesday, especially as I was already late and could not be bothered with turning back and finding another way. So I drove through it, despite the fact it seemed bigger and deeper this time, or maybe that was just when I was half-way through and beginning to have second thoughts. Anyway I made it. Although my car is now making a very strange noise at high revs and has no power, it almost sounds like something is stuck, so now I have the added joy of having to take it in to the dealership this week and have it checked out. Needless to say I haven’t bothered to wash it again, I will wait until the rain is completely over I think. More news on the recent weather can be read here, including pictures of hail! My picture of mud below is rather mundane in comparison :-).
Last night whilst I was watching some nasty reality show on TV, actually “the spa of embarrassing illness” I am ashamed to admit, and waiting for Stu to get back from his business trip, I suddenly noticed that I could no longer hear the TV over a strange roaring / dripping sound. My first thought was that the geyser had burst. After dashing around the downstairs of the villa for a few panicked moments I realised that the noise was coming from outside. I opened the front door a crack to be confronted by what can only be called bucketing rain! It didn’t last long as per normal, but my goodness did it come down hard. I am not sure if it rained during the night as well, but it started up again this morning at around 7am, thunder and lightening and all as well.
I have blogged about elements of this before, but today I received an email from a colleague, supposedly issued by the Dubai Authority, that contains an list of prohibited public behaviour for the Emirate. I am not sure how recent this is, I think it was probably originally written after the sex-on-the-beach Britons scandal, but its still relevant, quite interesting, and rather hectic, take a look..
We returned from our 10 day holiday on Monday (yes it was lovely thank you) to discover that we had been victims of crime! And this after we had been feeling a) very smug about the fact that there is little to no crime here in Dubai and b) rather relieved to have escaped Johannesburg relatively unscathed in the first place. We had left our garden gate unlocked whilst we were away so that our gardener could water our lawn, which was vital given that we spent a small fortune on replacing said lawn a few months ago, and it was going to be rather warm and dry whilst we were away (well what’s new right?). Anyway, we got home to find that our sprinkler had vanished, along with the connection for the garden hose along with it.