There is always something exciting about the Hamsins of early spring. Last week was rainy and cold and wintery. Today the Hamsin desert wind, or Sharav in Hebrew (Hamsin is Arabic), began to bring the heat and the dryness of the desert right into the city. Summer in Tel Aviv is very humid and sticky. The Sharav is dry and dusty. When I'm walking outside during a spring time Sharav, I like to imagine it's still cold and wintery and I am the lucky one, all wrapped up in a warm, dry blanket. I can do this, because in the springtime, the sun is not yet as fierce and unforgiving as in the summer, however hot the wind may be.

The beginning of the Sharav can be deceptive. My friends in the next office came to work wearing light clothes; everyone knew the Sharav was coming. They laughed at me when they saw I had come in suede boots, even though I was wearing a thin skirt and summery blouse. But our offices face north and they soon began complaining that they were cold. If you keep the windows closed during a Sharav, the cool weather gets trapped inside.

The feeling of excitement that the Sharav wind brings with it is symbolic. This is a season of new beginning. One of the many paradoxes in Jewish tradition is that although we celebrate Rosh HaShana, the New Year, in the month of Tishrei, which falls in September or October, the month of Nisan, which falls in March or April, is actually the first month. Nisan is the month of the wheat harvest and this is when we celebrate Passover, the festival of emerging from slavery to freedom.

When the wind changes and the Sharav breaks it will be time to start cleaning the houses for Passover. There's no point starting before because the sand and the dust get into everything. Maybe I'll actually get round to doing it this year.