Naive Psychologist

I think life would be much funner if, everytime Antony Green says ‘The Greens’, he had to qualify with, ‘no relation’.

There’s nothing says ‘the weekend’ like the sound of the washing machine.

And then, as I was forced to explain the highly colloquial expression I had given to me day, it occurred to me that a blue-arsed fly wouldn’t run.

It was a thought of no great importance, but still, I wish I could remember it.

The looming summer dominates our conversations. We are delaying, as long as we can, switching the air conditioners on, knowing that it will be November before we turn them off again. But we are starting to sweat, we are seeking shade whenever we can, we are wearing skirts and short-sleeved shirts. We take deep breaths of each bearable day, savouring them, trying to embed their memory in our flesh. There are so few left.

For all that things are better this year than they were last, I would still rather be at home.

The mister is home from Libya now, and I, having spent my first ever week of running the house single-handedly while holding down a full time job, am feeling not even a twinge of guilt at showing him the weekend schedule and letting him work it out.

I, personally, have no social life, but the boys’ are increasingly active and there has been a lot of tetris-type planning as I work out how to be here by then and there after that, all the while continuing my adjustment to full time work, packing the lunches, keeping myself nice and squeezing in the daily hour of writing that I am determined to maintain no matter what. Oh, and there was the small matter of documents-wrangling, a seemingly interminable part of life in the emirates.

The lads did go to school in damp clothes yesterday morning because I didn’t get them (the clothes, not the lads) on the line until late the night before. But that sometimes happens even when the mister is around and, as I explained, once on your body, damp clothes get dry, but smelly clothes just get smellier. And anyway, a few days before that, I had made a flawless banana cake and we all sat together just before bedtime eating flawless oven-warm banana cake.

The week ended at 8pm last night with me and youngest boy finally home, cuddled on the couch having a movie night, something we’ve never, ever done before. When we came to set it up, I remembered that our television satellite thing doesn’t work, and our DVD player is region 2, and all of our DVDs, except Bolt, are region 4 (don’t ask – especially don’t ask why we’ve got a Bolt DVD). So it was slim-pickings movie night, but movie night nonetheless.

In the light of the morning, I see that I left a wine glass with dregs on the coffee table, he left crumbs on the couch, and we both left pillow dents.

The clicking sound that the blackberry makes as people type really gives me the shits.

Did you know that when you have a job, a full time job, you have to go to it every day.

Today it rained in Abu Dhabi. That was nice.

And then, just when you thought they couldn’t, things got even weirder.