The Summer Slow Down

Here the summer term ends in a quick-quick-slow pace. Teaching teaching teaching, followed by half days (where the pupils only come in until lunch time) then time to mark assessments, write reports and pack up the classrooms with no pupils for the last few days. It is quite an anticlimax in lots of way. No real end of year concerts or parties...it will just be the end of a year.

We have been lucky this year with the heat. It only recently got hot hot. The type of heat where your eyes hurt when you walk outside. Where you feel your skin prickle. Where you will sweat no matter what you wear. Teachers stagger round the playground, eyeballs sweating, clutching a bottle of water, reminding pupils that the skipping ropes are not weapons, counting down every minute.

By the time I leave the circus school, the roads are emptying. Everyone wanting to rush home to find refuge from the heat in their cool houses and apartments. The roads are once again turned into race tracks (just like during Ramadan), not wanting to stay out one moment more than necessary. Time for lunch and a siesta.

Facebook is full of daily weather updates. Not a surprise, but neither is the heat. It is a desert after all. Yet as soon as the gauge hits the 40s, we turn to British ways and comment on it endlessly.

I am still running. But my buddy are back to 4:50 am runs or short evening sessions. It makes training for anything challenging. We tried a longer evening run this week, but after 35 minutes I was broken. I spent the rest of the night lying in my underwear on the cool tiled floor of the apartment. Next year I WILL join that overly priced health club...even if I use it on dusty, hot days it will be value for money!

Less than two weeks and I'll be on a big plane again. I'll be heading back to Scotland for a bit, then I am off to Western Canada; for hikes, runs by a lake (I've never been...just picturing it!) and a special wedding.

PS- Today, it was announced, Kuwait was the hottest country in the world (yep,my car read 50 degrees Celsius..it said 51 at one point!). Good job there is a lot of oil and money, as there are not many other reasons to be here. Now the summer exodus begins!