Year End Envy

In two days' time, Jack and Emma finish another school year. Rhys finished his nursery year yesterday. The long summer now stretches out before them all. Even longer than when I was their age - I had 6-7 weeks for summer holidays, whereas they now have nearly 10.

At the end of next week, Michele and the three kids will head off to the UK, where they have a packed schedule of activities and catching up with friends.

I will be here. At work.

I do have 3 weeks leave coming up, at the end of July, which is longer than usual and which I am very much looking forward to. Not least because it will involve 2 weeks in the USA, which is about as far away from Dubai as it is possible to get. One needs to get out of Dubai at least once every 6 months or so, in order to experience 'real life' and preserve one's sanity.

But 3 weeks, versus 10? It seems woefully inadequate. I remember the last few days of a school year - helping to take down wall displays; sorting through library and school books; making sure everything was emptied out, put away, and generally clean and tidy. As if preparing for some kind of nuclear winter. But the satisfaction you got from sorting all those things would send you off into the summer with a sense of having metaphorically dotted the i's, crossed the t's, and nicely tied off another year on the way to adulthood. Yet viewed from the other end of the spectrum, some 15 years into working life, summer holidays are now something you plan months in advance, then have to forget about and not let yourself thing about too much too soon for fear of it causing your work attention to suffer in the intervening period.

And then suddenly, when you feel physically overdue the break but yet are strangely unprepared for it mentally, your vacation is here. You spend the first few days of it getting used to not doing the usual working day routine. It takes a while to wind down. But then you're measuring the leave in terms of 'days done versus days still to go'. Hoping that time will slow down. Not wanting the end to come.

You may have a few days of quality time in the middle (although you need to have booked at least 2 weeks off to get that). But as the holiday nears its end, you start wondering about what awaits your return (unless, like me you are the kind of person who can't help but check in via the blackberry each day, so as to derive greater comfort from knowing what awaits you (and so being able to mentally prepare for it) rather than having no idea that there could be a ticking time bomb on the desk when you return). And you start mentally ramping back up ready for work again. You will have left some things for colleagues to 'cover'. But they won't have killed themselves to do these things completely, or to the fullest extent. Everyone knows that cover work is left on the corner of the desk, and attended to in your absence only to the bare minimum.

And then, before you know it, you're back at work. It's all over for another year. You assume that things will have changed and big events will have happened while you were away. They haven't.

How much more enjoyable life would be if everyone were allowed more than 25 days leave a year. The kids get so much more. Why such a disparity? A week or two off every 7-8 weeks would make the working weeks in between so much more productive. The endless trudge of week after week repetition of the working office life would be broken by more leisure time. More time with the family. More holiday time that is used as actual holiday time.

The obsession with the daily grind and the demands of the modern world are such that nobody would ever introduce such a scheme. But that's not to say that it doesn't make sense on some level.

The Rules of (Dis)Engagement

Yesterday (a weekend), and due to some timetable clashing of children's activities, it was my job to take Rhys to the birthday party of one of his nursery friends (aged 3). Don't get me wrong, the party itself was very well organised, and the parents concerned were very nice people who had gone to great lengths to ensure that their son had a fun-filled, 'Fireman Sam' themed, day. (I was particularly impressed... no, envious.... alright, jealous of their handiwork at having managed to construct a really rather good fire engine out of some cardboard boxes, some blue drinking cups, a hoover hose, a step ladder and a lot of red paint).

But here's the thing - Dads don't generally attend birthday parties. Unless you are duty bound to attend, due to the birthday child being one of your own (in which case your role is generally relegated to making drinks and taking photos - Mark, the father in question yesterday, performed both roles admirably), it is a rare thing to see a Dad at a birthday party. But there I was.

I did have the obligatory chat early on with Mark about our respective jobs and office locations, the Dubai economy, property prices and the like. But unfortunately this didn't fill 2 hours. Moreover, he had photos to take and drinks to pour. Which left me with a selection of 6-7 Mums to talk to instead.

Let's just say that wherever in the world any riots should next break out (rioters being, usually, male in the majority - perhaps Dads even), the police need not worry if they run out of crash barriers or riot gear. For all that would be needed to ensure maximum lockdown is a wall of Mums.

Surely there is no more difficult a barricade to break down, break in or break through. Like a line of perfectly linked concrete jigsaw pieces, there was no way I was going to be allowed in, or through their impenetrable wall of  disdain. They had me locked out faster than you/they could say "Mani/Pedi".