As it’s the holiday season, I’ve found it a bit hard to write like usual. Are you having the same challenge?
Anyway, I remembered that I had planned to complete my last post—so here it is, finally! Today, I’m writing it, crumpling all my other first shocks from Jully 1999 into this one.
Have you read my previous post? I hope you have, but don’t worry if you haven’t. It was just about some funny memories — which you might not find funny at all.
So, the second shock was the rain—not just normal rain. No. It was torrential downpours that welcomed us on our first night in the UK.
Imagine leaving the blue sky in Cairo with its boiling 40°C heat, only to land in semi-sunny weather—and just before going to bed, hearing the symphony of heavy showers outside. There, in that dark night, fat drops of rain started smashing against the windows of our room. That night, I thought it would never stop.
Being a bit imaginative, I exaggerated and turned the typical English weather into an unexpected phenomenon— with yellow warning alerts. I wove scary tales about myself walking through a hurricane with a useless umbrella. My tales seeped into my dreams and turned them into nightmares. That night, sleep was hard to find or even to invite. I wept buckets all night.
The next morning, the sun shone and reigned over the sky, proud to have melted all the puffy grey clouds from the face of the earth. The day was so warm that I wondered whether the heavy showers from last night had been just a dream.
Can you guess what my third shock was?
It was the quiet nights.
Since there was no availability in student accommodation, we ended up renting a flat in a good area that was a bit expensive but so quiet. Not that there were no humans around. Of course, there were! But the thing is, they rarely crossed your path.
When night fell, life seemed to pause.
No open shops.
No family outings.
No dogs barking in streets.
No fighting cats.
No neighbours yelling out of balconies.
No children chasing each other on the road.
Nothing but quiet, dark roads stretching out into the night.
And then, one night, out of that dead quietness, our doorbell rang at midnight. Our friends were too far away to pay us a visit. And midnight visits? That was impossible.
My husband was studying, and when he saw me standing before him, my eyes wide open, staring at him. He told me it was a drunk man who had mistaken our flat for his own and had probably found his by now. But then… we heard keys jingling and turning into our door lock.
‘He’s going to break into our flat,’ I gasped.
‘No, he’s going away soon,’ my husband said, just as the drunk man began signing and laughing.
Soon, he disappeared.
These first shocks turned into funny memories later on, and whenever it is July again, I remember those first days in England back in 1999.
With hope and peace,
Nahla
Pure and Simple 