Time for a Christmas Blog I suppose !

Happy Christmas everyone – I’m flying home on Thursday (only two more sleeps !).  It’s probably a good thing as my fingers seem to have lost the power of co-ordination (if that’s actually a power……was there a Power Ranger with Co-ordination – debate !)

It’s been almost 3 months to the day since I left to start a new job out here, and we’ve been through thick and thin (mostly thick but that’s another topic altogether !) and I have to say that 3 months away is to long for me, or at least apart.  It seemed to get to about 2.95 months and then it wasn’t helpful any more…..as you may have noticed with the drop off in the blog writing.

There have been other reasons for that I have to say – the general lack of interest from my readers wasn’t a specific one (I now have more readers in the US and Russia than I do in the UK – so put that in your pipe and smoke it !).  We have almost topped 500 page views in that time, which is probably above average (well, my average at least), and this will be the 20^th blog that I’ve written, which is well below average for me, but to be honest, you’ve probably heard it all before now !

The new job is definitely one of the reasons.  It all went live at the beginning of December, with me leading the charge in the first area to go live first.  Generally it’s been a success I’d say, but it’s all a bit early to tell whether we can make the significant changes that they need.  I’ve spent the last 3 weeks putting out the fires from the previous regime, as well as dealing with the usual mad panic that all Government Departments go through at this time of the year (being “end of year”).  The usual round of “we’ve got money left over in our budget so we must get it allocated to something…..anything frankly……..so that we don’t lose it” – which was why I spent an interesting couple of hours this afternoon wandering around a Helipad looking at the electrics with one of my electrical engineers, so that he could give this client a quote, so that he could accrue budget for next year !

Another reason that you haven’t been getting your daily (or at least every other day) is that I’m temporarily homeless.  Julian is moving out of his flat tomorrow and I was supposed to be moving into my new apartment (rented by the company) in Madinat Zayed.  However, and I won’t say I told you so (cause I may not have mentioned it actually…..), but the furniture isn’t in yet and won’t be until Thursday, by which time I’ll be in the UK (did I mention that I’m coming home for Christmas ?)  So currently I’m lying on Psycho’s bed in her apartment in MZ staring at my worldly possessions in three boxes and a suitcase.  I should point out that Psycho isn’t here – she’s in Dubai waiting to fly home (she’s flying home on the same day as me………) but she’s kindly agreed to let me sleep here tonight rather than swanning off to AD. 

I met her at Yas Marina Circuit, on Yas Island, just outside AD,

and she gave me the key, and I gave here all the printing she asked me to do for her cause she hasn’t been in the office for three days !  Then we went for coffee in the posh hotel which spans the F1 circuit (which isn’t very well built, in my opinion……..)

and then, because it’s Tuesday, we went out onto the track.  She cycled one way round (44km) and I ran the other way (2 laps – 11km !).  I should point out that this is perfectly normal for a Tuesday and that there are loads of people there and the you’re supposed to go in opposite directions !  It was quite fun really – might do it again soon !

Right, I have to go to bed before I get into any more trouble – I’ve just narrowly avoided exposing myself to some drunk carol singers on Skype, which is always a good moment to go to bed in my opinion !

I’ll take this moment to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a stunning New Year (just in case I don’t talk to you before next year – cause I’m going home on Thursday and I’m not back until the 2^nd January……did I mention that ?  You can check in every now and then though, you never know, I might have found a spare moment to write some more of this drivel !)

It's Camel Time

I’m back in the desert this week (as I am most weeks), and as you know, we have sand, and we have camels – only for the next 3 weeks we have hundreds, if not thousands, of extra camels.

Because starting on Saturday is the Al Dhafra Camel festival.  The largest camel festival in the Middle East (and therefore, I suspect the World).  The whole place is absolutely plastered with flags of all nationalities, huge tents (that just seem to appear overnight out in the desert), wire fences have gone up everywhere (which have filled up with camels overnight), and the dust – 4,000 4x4s can’t move around at ridiculous speed without creating a bit of dust !

Went for a run out into the desert a couple of nights ago, for the first time in a while, and the change to the landscape is staggering.  There are encampments and camel compounds stretching for miles, all lit up like Christmas trees, music blaring, huge BBQs going, and a constant stream of 4 x 4s thrashing up and down the desert tracks and roads, as well as across the sand in the pitch black (positively dangerous frankly !).

I don’t know what won the “strangest thing to see in the desert” category actually, whether it was the open topped pickup, driving slowly through the desert, with huge speakers strapped to the top, calling out evening prayer – that was a goody, or the other one that caught my eye was the kebab shop that has sprung up about 2k down a desert track, lights, signs, gas, you name it.  Bloody gennies going everywhere – no wonder the UAE has the world’s largest carbon footprint per head !  There was a huge portacabin on the back of a lorry, all covered in tent fabric, that was quite un-usual as well.  Then there’s the mobile petrol station that ADNOC have moved in (quite a sensible move actually, it will stop the great unwashed heading into town).

They are putting up a huge grandstand overlooking the show ring – so that the Sheiks can sit in the shade as the contestants for the Most Beautiful Camel are paraded, measures, and put through their paces (the reason, as I’m sure I’ve told you in the past, that Million Street is called Million Street, is because that is the prize money for the winner of the most beautiful camel contest – about 166k pounds, or so I’m told !)

It all starts on Saturday as I said, and goes on for about 10 days.  I will see a couple of days at least when I’m back down here next week, and I’ll endeavor to remember to take my camera with me so that you can all have the benefit of my experience (you lucky people !)

Other than that I haven’t got a huge amount to tell you – I shall be moving into an apartment in Madinat Zayed next week (with a bit of luck, although I’m not convinced that the furniture will be installed in time) – this is handy as my good and generous friend Julian is moving out of his large apartment in the marina and I won’t have a permanent base in Dubai any longer, so need somewhere to leave my things.

Did I tell you that I’m going home for Christmas, after 3 months away ?  Can’t remember (shrugs), it’s not important really………….I’m sure I’ll fill you in on the details at some point…….

Work has moved on a pace since last week – we’re still putting other peoples fires out, but they not out of control any longer (touch wood……) and I think I can see somewhere in the future, through the trees,  where there’s no smoke…….but it might just be the train coming the other way (mixing my metaphors again !).

Running, jumping, swimming and biking are all going on as normal (although the pool has been drained at the Tilal for cleaning this week, which was a bit of a shock, and not very helpful !) – I’m currently having a mental battle (and I mean currently – I think it’s why I’m typing this instead of actually leaving an empty office to go and do something physical)about whether to award myself a rest day today, after several hard days training, or whether to push out just one more effort to get thin before I go home next week (did I mention that I was going home next week ?).  Apart from one minor calf strain and a few blisters, I have managed to stay fit and healthy whilst losing weight and training harder than I think I have ever done, even whilst I was in the army.  Then again, I’m not likely to do a huge amount whilst I’m at home next week…….did I mention that ?

I think a rest day has finally won the argument – I don’t want to be ill or injured when I get back home next week, and recovery is as an important part of an exercise programme as the exercise itself (I read that somewhere)…….I’ve just checked my training diary and I’ve done 4 hard sessions without a rest, so I should have one ! 

I’m off now that I’ve finished arguing and have successfully beaten myself in a debating contest – sad isn’t it !

Here endeth the lesson !

For those of you not on Facebook

You may be a bit behind the curve as far as my current comings and goings are concerned if you’re not either a) here, or b) on Facebook as one of my millions of friends ……….OK, maybe not millions, but you’re all jolly important !

“I can’t be bothered” doesn’t sound very nice, but it does have a certain ring to it when it comes to me looking up what I wrote last time – I think it was a bastardised version of something from Shakespeare, concerning the likely demise of my good self through alcohol poisoning during the recent Dubai Rugby Sevens (COME ON ENGLAND).  The more observant of you will have already worked out that there’s no way I could have pre-programmed a computer to put this on here without me pushing a few buttons, and therefore that I must have survived.

You’re right and clearly deserve a lollypop or something (I’d say a cigar, but we don’t want to encourage that filthy disgusting habit now do we – we can come back to this subject later if you like !).

The Sevens were astonishing.  It’s the only way to describe something so quintessentially non-Arabic.  It sounds like a strange thing to say but I can’t think of anywhere in the world that I’ve been, for anything, where the event could have been on a different planet and you wouldn’t have known.  What I’m trying to describe is somewhere that was completely and utterly different to the world outside of it.  There wasn’t a hint of the fact that we were in the middle of the Arabian Desert, in fact there was barely an Arab in sight.  The whole place seemed to have been granted some special dispensation with regards to dress and alcohol consumption because I’m guessing that there were getting on for 50,000 people there on at least 2 of the days and all of them were drinking, in public, to excess, and dress decorum had gone right out of the window.  It was a bit like going into a British Embassy in some foreign backwater and finding yourself in the middle of Kensington…….well, sort of, you know what I mean…….(actually, it wasn’t even a tiny bit like that )

Those of you that watched any of it on the television will have been astonished by the number of people that had taken enormous amounts of time and trouble to dress up (not least the group of at least 20 men – and one woman it has to be said, and one of them was in a wheelchair, who had dressed up as cheerleaders and every time the real cheerleaders came out onto the pitch to do some routine or other, they kicked off in the stand.  After the first couple of times the crowd started to notice the fake ones and by the end of the day more people were watching the fake ones than the real ones.  They had even gone to the trouble of learning routines – astonishing, and all fuelled by alcohol in a country where it’s essentially illegal to the vast majority of the population. )

(Roll forward 5 days) I must again apologise – it seems like I’m doing that a lot latterly, for the time it’s taken to write this blog.  It’s the Saturday after the one I’m about to write about and this has been sitting open on my laptop for the best part of a week whilst I try and find time to commit to finishing it.  I’ll explain why time has been an issue over the course of the next page or so but for now, once again, please accept my apologies because you’ve had nothing to go with you coffee this last week (and my family have been using this in an effort to keep up with what’s going on in my life so they will be grateful to know that I’m alive at least……).

To cut a very long story short – Friday got very messy and when I finally woke up on Saturday morning with sand in my ears and a fat lip, drinking was off the agenda for the rest of my life (I’m better now though, you’ll be pleased to know).  It took a few days but I’ve pretty much pieced together the rest of the evening – the sand in my ears was because I was doing the dying fly on the beach at Barasti (obviously !), the fat lip was because I’d fallen down a hole in the pavement and headbutted the curb (I don’t want you to worry about my good looks though, I’m fine now, clearly I bounced !).  I did have to wait until Friday to find out who “Katie Sea Swim” was though……… We’ll gloss over the part about being abandoned on the side of the road by the bus taking us to Barasti when we all got off for a pee……..

I got a text on Thursday from “Katie Sea Swim” regarding our arrangements for our swim on Friday – which was nice……..by Thursday I had started to have some vague memories of agreeing to go for a swim with a friend of a friend of someone’s friend……I just couldn’t remember who, what, why or when !

Katie turned out to be a very nice (if a bit bouncy for 7 on a Friday morning) Australian friend of the Australian girlfriend of a friend of Julian’s (are you keeping up with this ?) and we had a lovely swim around the Hilton’s beach area – I did 4 laps, all front crawl (and so did Katie) and it seems that it’s going to be  regular thing, which is no bad thing from my perspective cause I definitely need an incentive to get out of bed on a Friday morning !  This week was particularly bad because I’d been to the works Christmas party on Thursday night.  However, needing to perform on Friday morning had been a good incentive to be a good boy on Thursday night – and I must say, there’s something quite fun about watching everyone else sink slowly (or not so slowly, in some notable cases) into an alcoholic stupor !

Diversifying slightly (we seem to be working our way back through the week but believe me we’re jumping about all over the place), Secret Santa brought me a traveling flask and two thermal mugs on Thursday night – which was great.  I say Secret Santa in its broadest sense but within 1 min of opening it, Captain Sensible (our Health and Safety Manager) came over to see if I liked the present he had given me and to tell me about how he knew I’d be doing a lot of driving etc. etc. etc. – so much for secret !  Anyway, it’s a great present and a great start to Christmas.

And that’s another thing (diversifying once again), although there’s lots of talk about Christmas here, and there’s wrapping paper in the shops and trees in the malls etc. It all feels a bit token (which I guess it is really).  I was in Barastis on Wednesday and noticed a massive Christmas tree……but that was all.  No other decorations, no crap Christmas music in the background, just a massive decorated tree in a corner and the usual collection of drunk builders and Russian hookers, all in shorts, sipping cider from plastic glasses as the water laps gently against the beach – sorry, drifted off into romantic fiction mode for a second then!

Where was I ? Ah, back to the 7s – On Saturday I picked up a few friends and we headed out again.  I was driving as I was never going to drink again at this point (I’m better now, did I mention that ?) but more importantly, my ace friend Justin, who had flown out from the UK to do a bit of business and was entertaining at the 7s, had offered me a couple of his spare hospitality tickets, which I snapped up. A) it meant that I could sit in the shade all day; and B) I could graze non-stop, all day, on the usual selection of hospitality fare (and jolly nice it was too) .  It did seem a bit of a waste, not drinking free booze all day but I found it surprisingly easy as it happens.  Once again, to cut a very long story short, England won, I had a great time, the atmosphere was brilliant, Psycho liked her cake (she caught on quite quickly that I had free cake and I had to mingle with the great unwashed to deliver a stack to feed her entire extended family – which was nice), Fluffy gave me a massage on the way home (Physiotherapists are born Sadists !) and everything turned out OK in the end (and by Friday I had finally pieced together all of the events of the previous Friday !)

Right, what else has happened – well, the reason I’ve had very little time this week (or inclination, it has to be said) is because my project went live on Sunday.  All the time I’ve been out here so far was to mobilise and to get ready for the great day of 4^th December.  I have to say that I could have been out here for 2 years getting ready rather than 2 months, and it wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference.  There’s never long enough to get ready, not least when you get everything you have been begging for, for the previous 2 months, dumped into your in-box on Sunday morning with demands for responses by Wednesday.  Cutting another very long story short, I’ve picked up all my toys now, and everyone has come out from under their desks – but it remains to be seen if this coming week is any better than the last one.  I drove literally thousands of kilometers this week, to the very outer reaches of the UAE.  At one point I was as close to being in Saudi Arabia as you could be without officially entering the country – I was on a balcony overlooking the immigration hall at the border crossing (we look after various elements of the whole border control area and I was “on tour” inspecting my troops).

On Tuesday morning a friend, Claire, arrived to do some work over here for 10 days.  You might remember that Claire was out here a few weeks ago, before Katy went home.  Claire is in the same group of friends (Wine/Book Club) as Mrs G, Katy and several others that I don’t think I’ve mentioned up to now.  Anyway Claire and I went out for Fish and Chips on Wednesday to catch-up (hence being in Barasi on Wednesday night – a reasonable excuse I think !) and Claire came to the golf with me yesterday because, as she put it, she hadn’t got much else to do and she’s never been to golf before and it’s free, and we came back here and met up with Julian and one of his friends and played pool and stuff, and I cooked a curry, and a jolly good time was had by all !

The golf, for those of you not keeping up with the sporting world, is the culmination of the European Tours whole year – The Race To Dubai, called over here “The Dubai World Championship” which is a bit rich seeing as only the top 60 from the European Tour can play in it.  Talking of rich, the prize money is a staggering $15m (although it might be Euros – in which case it’s even more staggering) – all that, just for waving a stick about……you may have noticed that I haven’t done much stick waving recently, I just haven’t got the time or the money at the moment – Triathlons are quite time consuming actually, and I need a new bike !

Anyway, I think that brings you mostly up to date with my rather uninteresting and generally boring life out here and pretty much all there is to tell you is what’s on the agenda for the next few days – I’m off to Abu Dhabi later (once I’ve been to the gym and had sausage sandwiches for breakfast) to watch F1 Powerboats (not the massive offshore ones that we looked at on the last trip out but the little whizzy ones that race closer to the shore, and because Claire has never been to Abu Dhabi or seen F1 Powerboats, and because she hasn’t got much else to do and because it’s free, she’s coming with me……there’s a pattern emerging here……. I might let her treat me to dinner at the Lebanese Mill later if she behaves herself …….MMMMMM KEBAB !

Then it’s back to the desert tomorrow via Abu Dhabi for a meeting in the morning and to pick up a few people for Induction training for my staff this week.  There are a couple of people coming down that have never been out there before so I’m thinking of dropping them off somewhere and leaving them to see if they can find their way back on their own !  I’ve got training dates fixed with Psycho, which is good as I currently need an incentive to get off my arse most days (I’m writing this now in my running gear because an hours typing looked more attractive than an hours running………) and then it’s just one more weekend before I FLY HOME FOR CHRISTMAS……….I did mention that didn’t I ?

I’m booked on a flight home on the 22^nd and I’ll be back at work in the desert on the 2^nd and I’m jolly well looking forward to it !  I’ve been away for (or will have been by the time I get home) 3 months almost to the day, which is the longest I’ve ever been apart by several weeks.  It should happen like that again but I’m almost over the final hurdle (I’m trying not to think too hard about it – you lot should steel yourselves for a couple of weeks silence when I do go because I’m unlikely to care about writing a blog whilst I’m consuming my own body weight in lard and alcohol !)

The only other news I guess, is that I’ve entered a 10k road race on the 27^th Jan (I think) and an Olympic Triathlon on 3^rd Feb, and with the Abu Dhabi International on the 3^rd March we have a few things to incentivise me to get back to pounding the streets.  On the downside, Psycho is leaving me L She’s off to Australia in mid-January to go back to University for well over a year.  I shall miss her for hundreds of reasons but mostly for nagging my lardy arse into doing something worthwhile with a large portion of my life out here – ironically, she blames me for getting her into Triathlons, but now she wants us to do an Ironman at the end of 2013…….why not, I’m going to die anyway, it might as well be just before my 50^th birthday !

And as they say, “on that bombshell” – I’m off to the gym !