Arabic-Lessons

Photo by Kenza Benaouda on Unsplash ** Of the things that still irk me, more than a year into my Arabian Odyssey, the sheer inefficiencies which seem baked into the system stand out for particular ire. Case in point: this past week to spend ten minutes picking up a letter from my employer and then delivering it at a government office fifteen kilometres away, I had to drive 250+kilometres. To my mind, it is something that can and should dare I say, be managed via an online portal but I found to my pain that this was not the case. It is no wonder then that in the short space of over a month I have driven just shy of three thousand kilometres, mainly between my outpost in the middle of nowhere, work (twice), the big city next door (multiple times) and the occasional trip to the provincial capital for some government thing or the other twice too. ...

Image Source: Tara’s Multicultural Table ** The difference a few degrees makes never ceases to amaze me, a small mercy I have recently found to my advantage as the morning temperatures, dipping as they have below 30 degrees for the first time since April, have allowed me go for short runs and brisk runs again. Between stress eating in South Yorkshire and not being able to rack up those 10k steps, my weight has ballooned by a cringe worthy amount. In a sudden fit of resolve, I downloaded the NHS Couch to 5k app and have now completed one week. Hopefully, that along with some portion control, gets me back headed in the right direction. Frankly though, I would settle for being able to complete a sub 24 minute 5k again, seeing as the chap who ran Parkruns for fun in the ‘Deen seems like a whole different person now. ...