Timings and Weather

For the first few weeks, if I did have a frustration over here it was all to do with timing. Meetings scheduled to start at 8.00 often didn't start until 9.00 and even then stragglers would be coming in after this time. But the longer I am here the more sympathetic I am becoming. I have a watch, a phone and a tablet, all of which tell me the time whereas most of the locals don't possess any of these and they make use of the age-old technique of telling the time by the sun.

Then the vagaries of the weather come into play. Last week I was told of a short cut to one of the schools, where my journey by bike had previously taken me 50 minutes. I tried the new route out on Sunday morning, 2 days prior to me needing to use it and yes, it more than halved the time.

Tuesday arrived and as I was set to leave I was told the previous night's rain had rendered the shortcut unusable so back to the original journey. Fortunately I had left myself plenty of time. Five minutes into the journey, the clouds opened and I found myself cycling uphill against the wind and with rain seeping into my bicycle cape wherever it could. I eventually got to school with just 5 minutes to spare to find everyone else waiting for me! So with no further ado I stood up and delivered a training session, with water dripping from my hair and my clothes leaving a puddle around me. Fortunately it was warm.

That evening I thought about the days events and I have made a resolution not to internally simmer about latecomers but to be appreciative of the effort they have made to be there. I was reminded of the saying about walking in another mans shoes - how true