I left you last week feeling rather exhausted still by all the new things in my life and work in general.
On Thursday I had a good morning at work and got an appointment with Medilink at 4.30pm. In the meantime, no sign of a housing contract...sigh. Sunday it is then.
After many attempts at getting through, I gave Ferret a call to arrange a pick-up from the office at 4.15, and he was pleased I was going to Medilink. However, 4.15 arrived and no car. 4.20, 4.25...Khalifa-the-receptionist started getting agitated, trying to call him but Ferret's phone was off. Luckily, Helena decided to go home at 4.30 so I hitched a lift with her, asking Khalifa to make sure Ferret came to pick me up after my appointment.
So I went in to see the doctor, and this time I saw Dr Catherine, a French doctor who started with Medilink on 1st September and is here with her husband, who works at Wintershall. She is quite young (33) and was rather relieved that I spoke French as she is having to take a crash course in English to communicate with her patients. However, she did seem quite competent and made sure she explained everything to me.
Well I showed her the rash and she decided it didn't really look like urticaria (nettle rash) as it wasn't red, but rather thought it is dyshidrosis . She prescribed stronger antihistamines and a corticoid cream to relieve the itching, which I put on immediately and felt better for. It seemed to help for the back of my knees too.
I have been reading up on this on the internet and it does seem to fit what I have rather well. Unfortunately it makes for a slightly depressing read as there does not seem to be much of a cure, and identification of the trigger seems impossible too! So this is all rather annoying. Having cut out fish, eggs and changed soap to no avail, I am left with three possible causes: watermelon, swimming pool products and water composition (in the shower).
This last week I have hardly been in the pool and in a way things seems to be clearing up. However, it just seems to have gone into late-stage dyshidrosis so I am not sure if that was just a natural progression or the lack of chlorine/funny pool products.
Sensitive stomachs should now look away as here is are some photos of the current state of my hands: not only lumpy and swollen, but now also rather awfully visible :-(
Well I have managed to schedule an appointment with a dermatologist in London on Monday (more on that later). Now that I am with Bupa, at least I don't have to wait for months on end for this kind of thing. Although dental and eye coverage might come in handy. Actually I have a rant and a series of opinions on the British private healthcare system which I might go into one of these days when I have time to kill. In the meantime, it's better than the crummy NHS for my problems.
Right, enough about the disgusting state of my hands. Sorry for going on but I am rather unused to having anything go wrong so this is taking up a lot of my attention (and rather distracting during the day too :-(
So Ferret did come to pick me up from Medilink and when I asked him where he had been he told me he had been washing the car! He could at least have thought up a better excuse...
Anyway, that evening we had the company Iftar (ie when people break fast during Ramadan) so I had planned to give some LCM people a lift back to the camp then on to the Iftar. So I briefed Mokhtar, explaining to him that my boss was going to come too and that he should therefore be doubly careful! The car was going to take Amir and I from LCM, and Phil and Janie were going to meet us here so they didn't have to drive into town in the crazy Thursday pre-Ifar traffic.
Ferret took us back to the LCM in the minibus, which he had been given by our transport people as there were going to be several people on this trip. He dropped us off and we said we would be back out in 15-20minutes. Now anyone would assume that he would have waited in the car park but no! He decided to go out again into the rush hour traffic, so of course came back 25 minutes late. It was downhill from there as he was stressed because he was late, and answered the phone while he was driving ( a COMPLETE no-no from a safety point of view) then stopped the van in a blind spot over the crest of a bridge, then almost collided with several cars at high speed. We were all holding our breaths by this stage, then picked up 3 drillers from the guest house on the way in to town. So with 7 people in the van, he still continued to drive too fast, very jerkily and very badly. In the back we just ended up completely ignoring what was going on around us and having a good conversation, but the logistics chap in the front wasn't feeling too comfortable!
The Company Iftar was pretty nice. The food was delicious and it was nice seeing people outside the office, especially local staff as this doesn't happen too often usually. Ate lots of super-sweet honeyed oily desserts too and could really feel the sugar rush!!
Here is a picture of me there, with Kathryn G, taken by Mirja (Ide's wife).
We somehow got home in one piece and I went straight to bed.
The next morning I had to be in the office at 7:30 as I was standing in for Yvan, who had gone home for a few days, on operations. Nothing much has been happening with the well as the drillers have had to shut down operations in order to train the crew. Ouch. Anyway, I asked Ferret to come at 6:30 so that I could be sure I would be on time...and for the first time ever he was on time!! So I spent a few hours doing the reporting and sorting out some logging issues with the drillers then went home at 10.20 and straight back to sleep for an hour!
Next day, I also had to get up quite early for the first panto rehearsal at 9.30 at Tim and Kate's house. (Tim is the director). Ferret was a bit late of course, but we still had time to drop off Mike (explanation later) at the office before finding our way to Tim's house. Pick me up at 12.30, please, Ferret, and then we'll go to pick up Matthew at the airport at 1.45. Yes yes OK OK!
It was nice to meet the other people on the cast and after introductions we read through the whole of the first act. Avantika and I are comedy pirates called Low Pockets and High Pockets, so we don't have too many lines but some energetic dancing apparently is on the cards! I think Tim came to see me on Thursday to tell me about the role...anyway I am very excited as it is perfect for my lack of experience: just a few lines to learn yet part of the play anyway :-) So I do get to do something new and fun! Arrrrrr
The rehearsal finished earlier than planned and Avantika gave me a lift home. So I cancelled my Ferrety pick-up and repeated 1.45 to the airport about 50 times.
At 1.45, no-one. At 2pm, I tried phoning but his phone was off. So I phoned Mohanned the friendly transport guy and he arranged for Matthew to be added to the airport pick-up that had already been organised. When he arrived at the LCM with the others, I was amused to find that they were all people I knew from Rijswijk! In fact, Erik even sat at the end of my corridor! Amgad was also there, and Mohammed as well as a German chap called Uwe.
So I took Matthew around the LCM and we ended up lying by the pool for a few hours :-) Luckily, the weather had got better since the morning: when I set out for the rehearsal it was very grey with the odd spot of rain! Luckily the sun had returned by lunch time and all was well again in paradise.
Right, I am off to dinner now but will write some more later, or tomorrow.
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