The weather nobody scheduled

The best weeks of the year in Dubai arrive in January, and most of them are spent indoors on errands.

Clear mornings, a cool wind off the water, light that makes the whole city look freshly drawn. It is the kind of week when the plan for a new product finally makes sense, when a difficult letter finally finds its words, when an idea that has been circling for months lands whole.

And then the week fills up. A visa renewal. A call about an unpaid invoice. A delivery that needs someone home. Meetings being moved around, because the country began the year on a new working week and everyone is still rearranging.

That last one is worth noticing. A whole country's calendar changed shape over the new year, by announcement, for reasons that had nothing to do with any one person's best hours. It is a useful reminder of where calendars come from. Other people draw them up, for their purposes, and we fit ourselves inside.

Most of the time that is fine. Shared calendars are how a city functions. But the good days do not keep to anyone's calendar. The clear head, the energy, the perfect weather, the idea that will not leave you alone: they turn up when they like and leave without warning.

The visa can be renewed in a fortnight. The invoice will still be unpaid on Wednesday. The good day is the only thing on the list that will not wait, and it is usually the first one we give away.