Since it rains so infrequently in Dubai, it feels fitting that the events of today’s spit-mageddon are recorded on the blog. Here goes:

6.15am: Wake with an uneasy feeling. There’s a strange darkness creeping round the curtains; I peer out the window and see ominous-looking clouds.

8.15am: The children safely at school, I continue on to work. Suddenly, the sky is split in half by a bolt of lightening. Rain drops start falling.

8.15-8.18am: Spend several minutes trying to locate the windscreen wipers on the car.

9.30am: While the sky is still a pale-grey colour, and the sea looks glassy, the rain appears to have stopped.

10am: Rumours surface that the KHDA, the government body that oversees education, thinks there’s a cyclone coming, and is shutting down all schools, immediately.

10.30am: Rumours confirmed. Schools send text messages to all parents, telling us to pick up our children as soon as possible, by 11.30am at the latest in the case of Son1.

10.30-11am: The evacuation sends all the parents in the office into overdrive. Frantic phone calls are made to car pool buddies and housekeepers. “The children are coming home!”

11.10am: Mothers all over the UAE mobilise their resources and cancel their afternoon engagements. “I was planning on an 11am Ashtanga yoga class, followed by a gellish manicure and a triple berry smoothie at the Lime Tree Cafe,” I imagine inconvenienced yummy-mummies saying. “And the nanny insists on resting in the afternoon.”

11.15am: Manage to get Son1 and Son2 home from different schools, by hook or by crook, without leaving my desk.

11.20am: Yet, despite the dire weather warnings, the sky looks like this:

Thanks for the photo B! Brightening up outside.

2pm: Texting DH who’s just landed in Melbourne, and three hours after the event, has received the SMS messages from school. “What’s happening?” he asks. “I can’t see anything like a cyclone on the wx map!”

3pm: Still no cyclone. Not even a downpour.

4pm: Will it, won’t it? The rain watch continues.

Raindrop-spotting at our office. Just *joking*. We were actually watching the Red Arrows aerobatic team performing loops and rolls above the Burj al-Arab

6pm: Drive home and hear all about how exciting it was when school closed.

Look at all this rain! Good job the kids were safe at home