Baghdad has never been the cleanest of cities. There is litter everywhere, especially on the roads. And this is wrecking my nerves. Not because I’m a neat freak: it is Baghdad, after all. If you want your streets cleaned daily, you need to find somewhere else to live. No, if I am a twitching bundle of nerves it’s because in my little brain the first rule of surviving Baghdad’s special surprise — the roadside improvised explosive device (IED) — is to stay well clear of anything suspicious in your path.

My cousin, who is driving me on a little tour of Baghdad, seems to think my wincing and twitching is amusing, however. He finds what I’m sure is a pothole from a previous little IED

explosion — now full of

rubbish — and goes right at it as I breathe in and press down on an imaginary brake pedal.

Over the years, each one of us has developed a set of rules on how to stay alive in Baghdad. Besides driving in zigzags to avoid anything lying in the street, there were parts of town I stopped visiting.

I also carried two different ID cards — one with a Sunni surname, another with a Shia surname — and I avoided checkpoints as much as possible. Under no circumstances would I go out after sunset.

But since returning to the city a month ago — after two years in exile — I am finding a lot of these precautions unnecessary. The checkpoints still have their rules, but they don’t involve trying to guess whether the person with the gun is from a Shia or Sunni militia.

Another of my old Baghdad survival rules that is now being brazenly broken is the self-imposed curfew by sunset. In fact, my cousin’s reckless pothole tour of Baghdad’s streets is taking place at eight at night.

So when my cousin, Kadhum, and his wife promised me ice cream in a public garden at this ungodly late hour for Baghdad, how could I say no?

Since I’ve been back, a lot of friends ask me: “How is it in Baghdad?” It’s not an easy question to answer. I tell them it depends on where you are. In central Baghdad it’s great. I am falling back in love with it.

But there are other parts that it hurts just to drive through. I’m keeping to the parts where it’s good for the time being.