Seasons

Before I landed in Dubai, I had not been further south than the Canary Isles, nor closer to the desert than a Greek beach. Plenty of preconceptions about what lay in store, but not the faintest real idea. I spent the night before my flight watching the Dubai Gold Cup on television, trying to figure out what people were wearing as an indication of what the climate might hold for me. Anoraks and flowery hats, apparently.

And on the morning of my first day, our company driver came to pick me up from the hotel. It was raining, which seemed to make him inordinately pleased and upset at the same time. Little did I know then that the next rain we would see would be eight months later.

But on those regular morning drives, I did come to understand some of the layout of Dubai, the changing landscape, the flux of the traffic. And the most surprising scent, the air full of the most unexpected tang of new-mown grass, an aroma from childhood, and all the more evocative for being encountered in such a strange context. This was a city built on sand, or so I thought.

Fast forward, and I now measure the seasons by changes in shirts. As we approach the end of April, the days are getting sporadically hotter, though recent wind has been dry, bearing improbably fine dust from Iran and furth of the Gulf. Being from that quarter, it is also relatively dry, though last night my suspicion was that the air was unseasonalbly cool. Confirmation this morning, in a blanket of fog.
And so, a slow commute to work, through steadily lifting fog, and the scent of fresh grass clippings filling the air at the end of the Creek. It is a pleasure to watch the seasons advance in a series of small changes, to see the landscape greening and then retreat again in summer's onslaught, to relish the shamals and the sand sprites driven across the road like drifting snow.

Time to dig out the cover for the barbeque...