The first storm of the season had us in darkness. There was some issue with the generator too. In Europe they say power cuts are often followed by a baby boom, the result of a change from the norm, dinner by candlelight, the impossibility of getting on with more mundane chores.

Here in Lebanon it isn’t much of a change from the norm but still an evening power outage in the past would have led to dinner out and long conversations over dessert about the intricacies of Lebanese dining habits or hosting etiquette and likely a couple of posts, maybe even one worth sending off to those nice people at the BBC who have always been quick to air a good piece. Now it just leads to me cooking dinner by candle light, baby in arms, trying not to trip over her “toys” (tupperwares) spread across the floor. And above all trying not to singe her on the matches, gas stove or candles.

But I still love thunder storms, and so does my Beirut baby. The proof is, the lightning-thunder sequence now has a third step. It goes Flash…Boom…”encore!” How to tell my baby that if I could control the weather then I’d also have the lights turn back on…