Monday 22 August 2016

Summer in the Global Village

Sunshine on Loch Lomond
Time to settle back into life in Abu Dhabi after our third summer back home in the UK.  One of the strange parts of this semi-nomadic existence is never quite being sure where 'home' actually is.  At the start of the summer I was very downhearted about going back to a post-Brexit Britain.  I wanted to see my friends and family and shop in the M&S food hall, but the idea of living out of my suitcase again for five weeks in a country that seemed to bare no recognition to the one I had left behind, did not fill me with joy.  However, after spending all of July where the grass was literally if not figuratively greener, I did not want to come back to our Abu Dhabi 'home' again either.  We had so much fun catching up with people, sitting in sunny gardens, walking through rainy forests, playing on windy beaches, competing in endless rounds of crazy golf, catching crabs and eating our favourite foods in our favourite places.  It felt like there was a lot to leave behind.


Finding NEMO
To lessen the blow on the journey back, we decided to take advantage of having to change flights in Amsterdam and spent a lovely 24 hours, floating down the canals and sitting in pavement cafes watching the world go by.  We also decided to make a trip to the science museum NEMO which my son loved.  We only had an hour until closing time so we were on a mission to test as many of the exhibits as possible, but who should we bump into on the third floor then our neighbour from our apartment block in Abu Dhabi.  They had popped over from the UK to visit their sister and just happened to be in the same place as us at the same time.  Earlier in the holiday I had also run into one of the other Mum's from the Abu Dhabi school run whilst queueing up to get into a forest park in Norfolk.  This week I found out that someone I used to go to school with in Shropshire lives in the same northern seaside town as my old flatmate from Leeds and that their kids are in the same year at school.  The world is full of these strange co-incidences and when you open your eyes to them they occur with freakish regularity.



I don't know if it is the universe trying to tell me something, or if there is a fancy statistical calculation that can explain such seemingly random coincidences scientifically, but I do know that it reminded me about why I love living here and am grateful for the opportunity it has given me to explore a new part of the world and meet new people from all over the place.  You never know when you are going to bump into someone again, or how or why your paths may cross, but it makes me happy to think that the world is really just a big village and no matter where I am I'm not far away from someone who will make me a cup of tea, give me a hug or let me use their washing machine in an emergency situation!

We've been back for just over a week now, and I have restarted my yoga classes, put the suitcases away and re-filled the kitchen cupboards in an attempt to get back to normal life.  Then slowly other people have started to return and my feelings of being homesick have disappeared.  When I bumped into two friends in the mall on Saturday (I'd nipped into the Apple store to price something up in between breakfast with friends and a much needed trip to the hairdressers), I embraced the coincidence, stopped for a chat and reminded myself that it is people that make places and luckily there are always lots of lovely ones about if you keep an eye out for them.


Back to yoga business


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