Just an ordinary day

More and more often my mind wonders over this blog or better over the fact that lately I am finding it hard to keep it updated. I could blame it on time however the thing that bugs me the most is that time is not the only issue (time can always be found I guess). The reality is that sometimes I feel like I have run out of topics.

It seems that some friends who update their blog regularly have an infinite amount of interesting subjects to delve on, as for me I am not sure whether I have run out of creativity, my world has become increasingly “normal” and bare from striking events or maybe I have just become so accustomed to the unusual that all is looking very “usual” to my eyes.

Has my life really become routine? Not sure.

Maybe I am just suffering from a “writer’s block”.

I have taken some time to ponder over this today; re-living the past few days trying to find some event or fact that may have happened that could be classified as, “unusual”, striking, surprising, strange, funny, witty; anything worth mentioning in the blog.

I guess back home you want to know what goes on over here and how we spend our days but then I think, do you really want to know what mundane things I have been up to today?

Sometimes in life someone will casually throw in a sentence in the middle of a conversation and that seemingly innocent sentence will stick forever in your mind; once a friend talking of people wanting to write books and biographies said: “for some reason people think that their lives are the most interesting thing to talk about but really who wants to read about someone else’s life”. It is a bold statement and it has stuck to my mind for many, many years. I find it so applicable now.

Surely from my point of view I lead an interesting life out here in the Middle East and I enjoy it very much; but going from enjoying it to actually believing that it is something of any interest for someone to read about is a completely different story. So here I am trying to find remarkable events to recount that could be remotely entertaining for you back home.

BLANK!

So what is happening? A lot but it seems that nothing is out of the ordinary any more.

Take today. It is a normal day off like others. I struggled to get up as it happens on my first day off of the week… it’s amazing the amount of tiredness that builds up in just 4 days!

I would have stayed in bed a bit longer but a friend suggested breakfast at 9:00am. So by 8:30 I was out in the car negotiating the already dwindling morning traffic. Life here starts very early, most schools and jobs start at 7:30 so by 9:00 am a lot of the people who sit in cars (generalizing a lot) are late starters or expat wives starting their round of breakfasts, brunches, coffee mornings, fashion meetings, plastic surgery consultations, shopping and who knows what else.

I dodged the usual car unpredictably breaking because the driver was lost in his own world of phone calls, observed the meticulously made-up lady texting at the red lights, got slightly (it’s my day off after all) hot blooded over erratic drivers with no clear destination or deadlines and finally made it to the beautiful area with the popular coffee venues.

It was a beautiful morning. I was sitting at the café outside, under the palm trees, the beach just below, temperatures probably around 23c and the gentle noise of the sea setting me right into the mood for a lazy breakfast. It felt like the beginning of summer in Italy. So nice!

My friend arrived and we spent two fabulous hours chatting over whatever crossed our minds.

Of course I can leave it sounding all picture perfect or I can add some more revealing details like: she had to order her hot water 3 times before she could take a sip of a morning drink, ending up with a non required bottle of cold drinking water and with me finishing my coffee before she could even start brewing her tea; she had to chase the persistent (and noisy) stray cat with the shoes in her hands and I “had” to haggle with a man at the car park when I arrived to have my car hand-washed during my meal for the equivalent of 2 or 3 euros (I am too “emotional” before breakfast for any kind of negotiation). All normal!

The rest of the day was also quite mundane. A quick stop to the dry cleaners to have the dresses used at the last balls cleaned, a telephone call to book a couple of treatments for tomorrow at my usual SPA where they now recognize me and call me by name (well, more like ma’m xxx) when I walk in, another call to book a hotel room for a romantic weekend in December in one of the most exclusive hotels in town to take advantage of a REALLY good offer, spending an expensive hour chatting to my life-coach (should I actually mention this here?) and booking the restaurant in another 5-star establishment for tonight.

Add fretting over a message from the landlord saying that the company is taking time to renew the lease for the house and that the company told him that S. no longer works for them (WTF? He definitely left for work in the morning, or.. is there something he's not telling me? ;) and that's the day done.

Yes that’s it and it is all pretty much normal. The rest of the week may be a different story. Who knows?

Now do you believe me when I say that nothing out of the ordinary is happening lately?