Back in town

I got back to Tripoli yesterday after an extended visa/Eid break back home.

I just about managed to get home on the Sunday: my visa had expired!! Luckily, 110 dinars, an hour's wait and various flapping about the airport later I managed to get an extension and made it in time for the flight.

Monday I went to drop off my passport for the new visa at the Embassy...and after the first two applications, that was it! System crashed, come back next Monday (after Eid). So I had to add on 2 days to my stay at home, which admittedly wasn't exactly a punishment!

In the afternoon I went along to a dermatologist, to finally have my hands examined by a specialist. It turns out it was indeed an allergy with symptoms like dishydrosis, and it is eczema on the back of my knees.
The cause of the allergy, however, was not something I ate, or the swimming pool or laundry product, but the body's reaction to fungal spores. This is not an immediate reaction and it seems in fact like it was triggered during our stay at the guest house, on the pre-visit. These spores mean one thing: badly cleaned bathroom/shower area.

So all that grief because a cleaner hasn't done her job properly. I am rather unimpressed and am going to have to have a word with the accomodation people here.

As for the current state of my hands, I am happy to announce that they now look pretty normal from above, if a little pink and tender. The skin is still falling off from the palms/under the fingers but at least I don't need to walk around hiding my hands. The dermatologist gave me some good creams.

The rest of the week I just caught up with loose ends from the hectic time of my move. I also managed to finally get the packers to examine, and in fact pack up, all my belongings from the storage rooms. All is now in the capable hands of Team Allied, who are just waiting for John Lewis to make an export delivery and then it should all hopefully be on its way. I'm not even going to start on how complicated it has been for me to get here, or rant about the HR system in this company...

Here are some photos of the momentous event: at first the packers had to bring everything outside...



Finally, the lorry arrived! in goes the Big Old Desk...



and more boxes, and more...



...until there is just enough space for a stick insect to squeeze through! Great packing lads!



I also had a chance to go and see Rachel's new flat in Fulham, which was exciting and very grown up; as well as visit Christian and Angela and their new baby just down the road. Here are a couple of pictures of the proud parents and little Maya :-)




I don't know what it is with my friends but they all seem to insist on having their children at the same time. So of course, I wasn't too surprised to find out that Marc and Alena's baby, mini-Marc, was also born on 27th September! Congratulations guys!



I flew back yesterday and while I was waiting in the rather long queue at immigration, someone remarked on which company I worked for (didn't help that I was wearing my 'branded backpack' - or did it). At first I was non-commital but it turned out to be our new wellsite geologist! Who was due on the rig last week but was also delayed for reasons mentioned above. So I helped him through the airport and handed him over to his driver, then went into the office to find far too many emails waiting so decided and head home after batling with them for an hour.

I got to the LCM to find that I had been booked in for 7th...November!! Luckily they had one room left, unfortunately smoking, for last night. They told me I would have to change rooms today as they are pretty fully booked but as I have been a long-term resident here they seemed to sort it all out and told me this morning that I could stay put till the end of my booking, which is next week. :-)

It was rather nice coming back to LCM as everyone was very welcoming, coming to shake my hand and treating me to nice bits of food/helping me with my bags etc. Almost feels like coming home, though I still feel a bit detached. Same in the office: everyone friendly and welcoming, which makes such a difference when you've been away and more than one person noticed!

The only thing missing now is my motley crew at the LCM: Amir, the persian finance guy who has gone back to Dubai for visa purposes, who is over on a short term assignement and stayed at the LCM for a couple of weeks last time; Shady (pronounced with a short 'a'!) and Tarek, from Halliburton and Baker, as well as Mike-the-security-man, who is probably back in Tunisia now after a week in Libya. Ali-the-big-Egyptian is still here, and Glen-the-Canadian is back so there is some degree of continuity!

Finally, today I had my first Arabic lesson! Strange feeling of having to learn yet another alphabet...this is going to have to be the last one, really! So far, so good, it seems to be a lot easier than Russian (no cases!) though the art is clearly all in the dots...

Ah, speaking of Russian, I just received via EJ via ExpatMail a fantastic children's story book full of Cheburashka and Krokodil Gena! It was so very sweet of Sasha K (aka little brother) to send that over and really reminded me of all my friends from Salym. The legend lives on! Hmm, maybe I should send a copy of some of the pages to Marc for baby Marc, just to complete the circle...

On that note, I am offski!

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