It's raining...

It’s raining…

It may seem strange to get exciting about rain, but you see after over 30 years of living in Manchester, where rain is an almost daily occurrence, regardless of the time of year, I do miss the rain. So, when it started raining yesterday I was so excited I actually called my mum to tell her!

However, it’s not all good news; a side effect of rain in Karachi is that the power has gone off. This is something that happens quite regularly here, for two reasons, one, water gets into the system and shorts it out, the other is that KESC switch off the power to stop it shorting out when water gets into the system!!

It was really great this morning not to hear my alarm go off, it didn’t mean that I slept through, but I did get a lie in. Last night was the ‘staff do’ at Lal Qila (Red Fort) which was good fun, with great food.

We had a very busy, but productive last week in school and we managed to get everything done that needed to be done and had an excellent assembly including the final of Frantic Formulae. For the uninitiated, Frantic Formulae is a list of chemical compounds and, against the clock; the students have 2 minutes to convert as many of the names into formulae as the can. The correct answers are then called out, and as the students make an error, they sit down and last person standing is the winner.

Another side effect of the rain was that when I attempted to start the car nothing happened. This required Haider (my latest chowkidar) and a couple of the neighbours managed to bump start me so that I could make my way to Clippers for my end of term beautification. As ever Mavis was great and my head and shoulders massage after my haircut and shave, for the first time involved machines!

I now have 12 hours before Zubair arrives to take me to the airport and I begin my journey to Hyde. I should arrive there about 5pm BST on Saturday. As ever, the thought of packing and travelling fills me with dread, but it is a necessary evil until somebody gets on and invents the Transporter!

I still find it hard to believe that I have been in Karachi for nearly two years, it seems like only a few weeks ago and at eh same time like I have never lived anywhere else.

I have lots planned for the next 9 weeks and, Inshallah, my next post will be from Hyde, wonder if it’s raining yet…