It took, I remember, five days to spot a cloud in the sky when I arrived in Dubai for the first time in early November, 2003.

Every morning I would open the curtains in the bedroom of my 16th floor apartment, expecting the worst -- I was born and bred in Wales where the meteorological default setting is wet and windy. So to look up and see the same pristine blue that one might find in a tropical lagoon for almost an entire week – not even the faintest brush-stroke of a cirrus cloud -- was something that struck me as bizarre, if not unwelcome.

PostedNovember 6, 2013

AuthorGuest User

CategoriesWhere

TagsSeasonal, Dubai

Inconvenience and anxiety are small prices to pay for a front row seat to the birth of a democracy.

But as an 11-year-old experiencing the death throes of apartheid in South Africa I’m not sure I fully grasped the events unfolding. When history was happening around me I was, mostly, just spoiling for a bike ride.

PostedJuly 31, 2013

AuthorGuest User

CategoriesWhere

TagsExploration

When my wife Vanessa asked Bill Fletcher about visiting India

he said, “if you want India with pain, go to the North, for India without pain, come to the South where I live.” Our Indian visas were good for one year, so we decided to take the painless route, and visit Fletcher in Fort Cochin, in the state of Kerala. We’d visit the North on a subsequent trip, we told ourselves— it’s only a four-hour flight from Dubai, where we lived at the time. This proved incorrect, at least so far, as our daughter was born about nine months after that trip, and India with pain and a baby didn’t sound very attractive.

PostedJuly 31, 2013

AuthorGuest User

CategoriesWhere

TagsExploration

settled-and-unsettled-by-rose-gowan@2x.jpg

It’s a very strange thing to find oneself speaking like a four-year-old in mid-life.

My daughter is four, and my son is only six, so this is all very familiar; I have seen it from the outside. I stammer; I get frustrated searching for a word that just won’t come to my mouth— I know that I’m using some words and phrases incorrectly, and I’m embarrassed about it, but I can’t help it. When I’m speaking and someone smiles, I’m not sure if they are smiling to encourage me, or laughing at my pronunciation. When I’m speaking and I’m met with blank looks, I can’t tell if it is my words or my ideas that are incomprehensible.

PostedJanuary 8, 2013

AuthorGuest User

CategoriesWhere

TagsLearning, French, Montréal, Adult Education, Curiosity

My first book is being published soon.

It’s a collection of short stories set in the Arabian Gulf emirate of Dubai, where I first came to work in 2003, seduced by a mixture of money (back then I was an impoverished freelancer in London) and a strong curiosity about another continent, another way of life.

PostedJanuary 8, 2013

AuthorGuest User

CategoriesWhere

TagsWriting, Literature, Dubai

Hot and Cold

It took, I remember, five days to spot a cloud in the sky when I arrived in Dubai for the first time in early November, 2003.

Free Wheeler

Inconvenience and anxiety are small prices to pay for a front row seat to the birth of a democracy.

Kerala Calling

When my wife Vanessa asked Bill Fletcher about visiting India

Settled and Unsettled: Learning To Live In French

It’s a very strange thing to find oneself speaking like a four-year-old in mid-life.

The Sated Camel

My first book is being published soon.

Social

Colophon

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