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Sunday, November 10, 2019

Biblical

After a beautifully sunny weekend, today dawned a little grey and got greyer as the morning wore on. By lunchtime, lightening was forking through the skies and thunderclaps rattled the window frames of the office. By chance I had discovered an umbrella in the back of one of the cupboards near my desk during a fruitless search for an old CV a few weeks ago, so, appropriately armed against the elements, I headed off to my lunchtime meeting. By the time the cab arrived at the DIFC the rain was speckling the windscreen and by the tine I had exited the cab, it was absolutely hammering it down. Fortunately there was sufficient protection from the various canopies from surrounding buildings but boy did it rain!

Dubai does sunshine very well. However, on the rare occasions when precipitation occurs, it buckets down and the absence of drainage becomes very noticeable as do any defects in the weatherproofing of the buildings. Today this mainly manifested itself in deep pools of water wherever the roads dipped downwards and on the way back to the office we passed a stationary saloon car, in the middle of the road hazards on, up to its doorframe in water and a somewhat unhappy looking driver gazing morosely out of the window. A colleague showed my a video taken at the local mall where one of the shops seemed to have installed an indoor swimming pool. It was only on closer inspection that you could see the shop assistants trying to clear the stock onto shelves and tables as rain cascaded in through the ceiling. It never rains but it pours.

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