It's that time of year again...

... people are saying a lot of things like "see you in September" – which makes me panic, cause I am not going anywhere until at least mid-August – and it's getting hotter and hotter. I am not sure if it's worse this year knowing how hot it is going to get, but everyone around me is preparing for the 50Cs that are to come. Many of us have hunkered down with entire seasons of DVDs to watch - I am peeling through various seasons of Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Dexter, and Mad Men, not to mention the fabulous British shows Peep Show and Pulling, trying to avoid spoilers that are everywhere. (For example just this morning I read that Daniel Faraday was shot by his mother, which bends my mind and also makes me cranky, as he still very much alive - although speeding through time, of course - in the Lost episodes I've got going; also I just read that Mad Men's Don Draper's wife is pregnant and the baby is his, despite her fling, grrr). I've also joined a tiny gym two minutes from my house, and buy one-off fitness classes from another, rented a car with a friend to make navigating the searing oven that much easier and booked a holiday home to Canada. Oh, and ice skating, but more on that later. The important thing is to avoid gaining 5 kilos, like I did last summer, and still have not gone much of the way toward losing. You see, a weird depression starts to set in when a person has had no fresh air for three or four weeks.

A loopiness - we are all worried about it. No wonder most Emiratis leave.

Another colleague has bought an exercise machine and declared that he is "going nocturnal". A friend bought some fish, lots of them. Someone else dug out his big floppy hat, and has been wearing it. As usual, many people continue to drink heavily. And suddenly the radio weather reports - "another hot and muggy one today" – are funny, as is hearing dry British colleagues remark to each other "warm one today, isn't it?"

I've been chatting with a fellow who is considering coming to Abu Dhabi for a job, and he was telling me some high heat one-liners, which I liked. (Submissions welcome, by the way)

I am reminded of when I first told my brother more than a year ago that it looked like I might move here; "Annie," he said, "it's like 50 degrees there in the summer." I brushed it off, as you do all negatives when you really want to do something. I won't say I wouldn't have come if I knew what 50 degrees felt like (or 55, actually).

I'm just scared to feel it again, that's all.