How’s that January heat wave working out for you all? Quite balmy is it under the thermals? Cosy, or just positively Baltic?

The winter break in Scottish football is quickly looking like an inspired choice from those in power at Hampden – who’d have thought it? – as clubs shut up shop, batten down the hatches and wait for Dingwall to look like somewhere north of the wall in Game of Thrones.

Insert joke here.

For Celtic and Brendan Rodgers, the struggles of trying to limber up in rain, sleet and snow seem miles away. Three thousand, six hundred and twenty to be precise.

The Parkhead club have been out here for around a week now. What started out with a few days of downtime, preparations for a special second half of the season are well under way. Apologies now to the rest of the league, there’s not even the merest hint of a foot being slightly eased up on the accelerator. Quite the opposite.

Read more: Celtic in Dubai: Brendan Rodgers sold on new Celtic star Kouassi Eboue in 10 secondsThe Herald:

Already this week the assembled press pack have spoken to the manager himself and several of the first-team squad, all relaxed and already looking reinvigorated. Spending a week in Dubai with a 19-point gap at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership tucked away in the back pocket of your Bermuda shorts will do that, right enough.

Coming all the way out here may have initially been seen as unnecessary extravagance (that’s what the wife said before she tried to drop my passport into the chip pan) especially given Celtic’s ample lead domestically in Scotland with no European football on the horizon.

But if you think that you’d be wrong. This season Celtic have already played 36 games across continental, cup and league competition (a regulation Premiership season is just 38) and we are only at the halfway point. To have done so and with relentless ruthlessness in the league and Betfred Cup is bound to make you a wee bit puffed oot.

Read more: Celtic in Dubai: Brendan Rodgers sold on new Celtic star Kouassi Eboue in 10 seconds

Not far from Celtic’s luxury five-star hotel the team are training under the Arabian sunshine, scorching down on a perfect playing pitch inside an enclosed stadium on the city outskirts. It’s a long way from chasing a rogue set of cones being wheeched across a Lennoxtown training pitch.

Equally important though is the mental break this trip to the United Arab Emirates provides. The pace is laid back here, there are some phenomenal restaurants, no shortage of breath-taking views and a beach that just about pips Ayr. It’s also a wee bit warmer too.The Herald:

Rodgers has also invited the players’ families over here, with each day allowing down time after the league leaders have been put through their paces.

During a media day at the team hotel yesterday Rodgers told the local press – consisting of a Scotsman and a Northern Irishman, which sounds like the start of some sort of a joke – that the prospect of returning here again next year has already entered his mind.

“It’s certainly an opportunity for us at this time of the year and I would certainly always look at it for sure,” he told the top two men from Gulf News and The National.

Read more: Celtic in Dubai: Brendan Rodgers sold on new Celtic star Kouassi Eboue in 10 seconds

“There’s not too many better places in the world than Dubai to come to.”

As a first-time visitor to Dubai, it’s an extraordinary place. Sun, sea and, err, sights just about make up for the fact it’s 10 quid a pint.

Well, so I’ve heard.

Apart from taxi journeys to and from the Celtic team hotel, the opportunity to sample the Dubai experience (paying £8 for a bottle of water) has so far escaped this sun-burnt hack, who with each passing day is increasingly looking more and more like Elmo, only far less cute.

Given it’s a working trip, however, I remain dedicated to my craft and won’t waver from the task in hand of bringing you further updates from our teams.

Oh waiter…