The taste of sea water is disgusting………..

Now some of you may be wondering how this relates to anything logical in my life, and some of you will just be waiting, with a certain amount of resignation, for the next tragic episode to unfold……… Hang on a minute whilst I go and check where I left off the last time….

Ah, right, some time ago actually – well, work carried on a pace down in the desert and eventually I came back to Dubai (that pretty much covers Tuesday to Thursday).  I’ve had a bit of trouble trying to get a car sorted out for a variety of reasons but mostly because of the incompatibility of credit cards etc.  The whole thing petered out on Thursday night with me throwing toys all over the floor and everyone at the end of a phone leaving for a very long holiday (it’s Eid here, or Eid Two as it’s colloquially known – Eid One is at the end of Ramadan as a celebration of some kind……I’ll get back to you on the detail at some point).  Generally everyone is off until Tuesday (from Thursday last week) but Government workers get an extra day and don’t return until Wednesday, and as both of my offices are in Government buildings I shall be working from home on Tuesday !

The end of the car scenario is that the Office Manager at work is going to sort it all out for me when we get back on Wednesday so with a bit of luck (InchAllah – If Allah wills it) I’ll have a car by the weekend.  As I’m almost certainly heading back to the desert on Sunday I shall definitely need one at that point.

On Thursday night I went to one of Dubai’s posher hotels for a drink with colleagues from work – quite why we went there I’m not sure but the big boss was in a very good mood and picked up most of the tab so the evening was very pleasant from that perspective.  Actually, whilst I think about it, there’s something else that’s worth a mention.  I’m becoming a big fan of my company, and the people that work for it.  After we left the posh hotel we walked through their beach front garden and into Barasti next door (some of you will know that Barasti is probably my favourite bar in Dubai) where it was decided that we should have a whip rather than try and buy rounds or individual drinks, so we all put AED 100 in and someone took charge and organized the drinks etc.  I decided to head home at this point (whilst I was tired but relatively sober) and didn’t give much more thought to the whip but on Friday I went out for Brunch with the same group (I’ll come back to Brunch in a minute) and despite the -fact that the person who originally held the whip wasn’t there, the remainder of it was produced and used to pay the taxi fees for the ride over to brunch - I was mightily impressed !

Right, back to Brunch – Dubai has developed a phenomenon around eating and drinking as much as you can for a fixed price over a certain number of hours…..Brunch.  Brunch generally takes place at hotels and what you get is generally characterised by what you pay.  If you want Champagne and lobster in an up-market hotel then you’re going to have to pay AED 600 (about 100 quid to most of us) and upwards, but remember, that basically buys you as much champagne as you can drink, and as much lobster as you can eat between the hours of 12 & 4 (generally).  Obviously this is only part of the fare on offer but you know what I mean – you could probably drink beer and eat bread rolls for the same money……..but why would you ! 

As most of you will know, I’m not a champagne (don’t like it so don’t drink it) or lobster (can’t see what all the fuss is about) sort of guy, so you might not be surprised to know that I find the other end of the market much more attractive.  I’ve only been to one Brunch before (when a friend invited me to his birthday celebration much earlier in the year) and I really enjoyed it, and I think it only cost about AED 275 and I think I got value for money that day.  So to be invited to one that only cost AED 169seemed like a good idea to me……..I think we can all guess where this is going can’t we……. Those of you that are my friends on Facebook will have witnessed the carnage created by deep desire to get as much value from AED 169 as possible – why oh why can’t there be some kind of competency test that you have to pass before you are allowed to put anything on Facebook is beyond me……….I’m also not sure what the chicken had to do with anything at gone Midnight…….again, we’ll put that one down as another story I think.  Suffice to say, I was awake at 1230 not because I had managed to stay out that long after starting at 12 midday but because I had folded dramatically at 7.30 and gone to bed, then woke up as fresh as a daisy just as everyone else was going to bed (I did get back to sleep though you’ll be glad to hear…..about another 4 times between then and 4 on Friday afternoon !)

What’s all this got to do with sea water I hear you ask……and I’m glad you asked, but you’ll just have to remain patient if you don’t mind.  During my drunken ramblings Psycho pops up on Facebook, which was a bit of a surprise because she was supposed to be in Nepal (her flight had been delayed for 19 hours and as she was only going for 48hrs she decided that it wasn’t really worth the trouble) – anyway, she pops up and asks me if I’m still thinking of doing the Burj swim (which is 800m around the Burj Al Arab hotel – which sits on little man-made island just off the coast here.  The Burj Al Arab is the very famous and iconic sail shaped hotel which everyone has seen a picture of at some point).  Well, you can imagine, in my weakened state I openly stated that I would if she would and then tried to book it for both of us right there and then – fortunately an IT/ Strongbow conflict prevented me from doing anything to stupid but to cut a long story short, I booked it the next morning.  I hate swimming and I really hate swimming in the sea so why did I book myself onto something as stupid as this !

The real reason I guess, is that if I’m going to take this bloody Triathlon thing seriously then I need to get used to swimming in the sea (or at least what they call “open water”) and I have to be able to swim at least 750m so I might as well test myself under these conditions – I’m also a little bit nervous about actually lining up with some of these people who are probably super fit and are going to leave me trailing in their wake (literally).  Once again, to cut a very long story short Psycho took me out for a sea swim this morning to get me used to the whole scenario – and I can tell you, it’s horrid !  It’s the greatest incentive to swimming fast and getting out of there, that I can think of and the sooner it’s over the better.  I’ve promised her that I’ll go out again on Tuesday morning for another 3 laps of her course so that I’ll be even more ready for Friday than I am now – but it’s going to take one hell of a lot of will power to get up on Tuesday morning and get down to the beach before the crowds arrive…..I’m sure you can’t wait to hear how I’m going to fair, both on Tuesday and Friday.

Apart from all of that, fake bag shopping with Katy and Psycho last night, trying to give up smoking again – at least for a while, lots of cooking and stuff (Julian’s taken to calling me Dobbie) I haven’t got much to report……..well, I probably have but I just can’t remember most of it – I did meet an ex-Wales and British Lion rugby player in Barasti’s last night (we were on our way back from bag shopping and went to meet Julian – there’s definitely something about turning up stone cold sober in a bar like Barasti, at midnight which takes away some of the magic !  All of last night is a story in itself I can tell you, but that will have to wait for another day as well) needless to say, the rugby player could barely stand up, never mind hold a coherent conversation, so I didn’t get the chance to discuss anything of any interest with him – but he’s a friend of a friend so I’m sure that they’ll be other opportunities.

Right, I’m off to make a curry for the freezer and I’ve just realized that we’re into the third page so you must be bored rigid by now – TTFN.