Creeping torpor in Expatland

Well, fuck this as they say in the nose bleed inducing upper echelons of pointless professional development circles. Inevitably the initial glow of pleasure at the escape from the professional and mental constraints of living and whinging in the education micro-managed mincer of very Little England has since receded. Not that I am complaining about life being too easy here and wish to be back there, oh no, pas de tout, as I might once have said, that would be very wrong and indeed a tad ungrateful for what I have here. No, a four hour day suits me more than fine as it would most of you. I'm reasonably well paid but want a little more but not sure exactly what. Stupidity and occasional wildness would be good but that last happened during the Bad Behaviour of Xmas and New Year when friendships were amusingly breached with ladles full of ire and umbrage lapped up slurpingly by those who really ought to have known better...

...and they do, they too are just bored and want to imbibe bagfuls of ire and umbrage to give some meaning to the too long time they have spent in this pleasant but ultimately unlively neck of the Gulf. I suppose it is a kind of expat langour caused by an unstressful semi-detached life in which meaning is not always clearly defined. Some turn to extreme exercise - triathlons, climbing, cycling, sailing (does that count?) all in extreme heat. Others seek fun in bad choirs (only the former Soviet staff do amateur music well), some women (never men) snuggle up to house cats (a messed up concept if ever there was - the house cat that is) and others, usually Brits and the running dog Aussies (or is it the other way round?) lend themselves very well to genial genteel affable alcoholism, if there is such a thing,which sometimes, I am told, leads to well (coughs and blushes), inappropriate liaisons and equally healthy or not, a worrying few have taken to religion, some going native. Each to their own I suppose...

...and now it's raining, proper biblical wadi rupturing rampant storms showing up the rubbish nature of the semi-slave built buildings and roads,  as cars, goats and stray forgotten excess last children get washed away in a brown slurry of Koranic rain and cheap infrastructure. Hey, it's all part of Allah's great plan so a bit of death, destruction and muddy mayhem is nothing to worry about. And like our crap snow days in once Merrie Englande, we get rain days out here in the Gulf as the washed away roads and power cut combo means that no one has the slightest idea how to deal with anything which is actually a rather pleasant  excuse to stand outside on the balcony with a glass of red and watch the kids frolicking in the floods as ours did in the snow before it became boring.