Summer in the city is always challenging. With the mercury rising into the 40s, the streets are often empty during the day, the tennis courts are full in the evening, but you can often get a table at the restaurant of your choice on the night.
Many spouses and children have been sent abroad.
In many ways, for a couple of months it must resemble what Abu Dhabi used to be, a working oil town with a predominantly male population, rather than what it has become.
For those of us who have sent neither women nor children away it is particularly challenging.
After a two-week tour of France and Italy in a Citroen Berlingo - now there's a car you don't see on the Sheikh Zayed highway, although it's a fine vehicle that can swallow five people and six suitcases and still tool along the Autostrade at 150kph in some comfort, if not style - we left the two girls with their grandmother in Rome, but returned with my son.
He is 8 years old and doesn't mind what he is doing as long as there is a ball involved; in many ways he resembles a human Labrador.
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For the past two years he has spent four weeks or so at the Shangri-La summer camp, where he has been entertained royally. I phoned the hotel to ask what time the activities started in the morning.
"There is no summer camp this year," I was told.
"Why not?" I replied.
There was little explanation on the phone, but I later spoke to the manager of the health club, who told me that a few months back an individual arrived who asked a number of questions about the summer camp.
His visit was followed by that of another inspector, who revealed that he was from the municipality and asked whether the hotel had all the necessary permits.
It turned out the hotel did not have the necessary permits, so a decision was made to cancel this year's camp. Apparently other members were told about this a month or so ago and were relatively sanguine. I'm an easy-going character, but I would have liked some warning. After all, this is something we paid for in our membership that we are not receiving, although it's not really the hotel's fault.
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In return, we have been given a series of swimming lessons for all the children. This is a satisfactory outcome, although it does seem that sometimes bureaucracy is too bureaucratic for its own good, or at least my own good. It is always a risk when you buy shares or bonds that something untoward might happen, just as there's a risk when you take out an annual membership that the benefits that you are paying for may no longer exist in six months' time.
When this happens, I'm not sure what the answer is, although perhaps it goes back to the oldest commercial advice in the book: caveat emptor, or buyer beware.
