Summertime...
In which Ramadan ends, and forty degree weather falls, as though from the sky
Photo by Il Vagabiondo on Unsplash
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One day it was wet, slightly windy and the temperature was below 30 degrees C, the next it wasn’t, which is how seemingly out of the blue the semblance of winter bowed out, being replaced by summer in all its fierceness. To be brutally honest, calling ‘it’ winter would be a stretch by all accounts, but for the context of the prospect of 40+ weather over the next few months. Of more personal importance though is that it is the end of Ramadan, and the lengthened hours with little food that was my lot in the period (a quirk of the shift patterns revised for the period was that my work day started an extra hour early, and the food spots at work were all closed). As with last year, I decided it would be a fantastic time to attempt to shift some of the weight, tacking on three morning runs and reduced carbs to the month. The three kilograms which have somehow slid off into the ether suggests there was some value to all that exertion. Whether it was worth it all remains to be seen though.
Casting my mind back to this time last year yields little by way of extant memories, although given what came afterwards, I would guess I spent the month up to my ears in work, trying to clear my desk whilst putting finishing touches to my travel plans, 72-hour PCR tests, quarantine and all. It is not much different this time - being a couple of team members light at work means it promises to be a hectic May and June before I and my contingent ship out to the proper summer of South Yorkshire. A trip up to the ‘Deen definitely beckons also, given it will have been two years, four months and a bit since I last passed through. It will have been two years of being a prodigal abroad then, surviving COVID, having to build networks from the scratch again and welcoming L who never ceases to be a fascinating experiment in reinforcement learning (both for us adults and her), amongst all other things.
Plenty to mull over this summer then; milestones, friends to reconnect with, moments to pause and ponder the directions of the next few years and the odd Parkrun or two, In sha'Allah.