Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Mezza

Home sweet home. Scotland, that is. Or to be precise, Edinburgh.

It's been 9 months since the wife and me have been home. I've been away longer but this 9 months has seemed like a long time. It's just nice to be out of Dubai to be honest.

The flight back was decent. The plane was probably high full and with it, there was more space to move around and it was quicker to get breakfast and dinner served - always a bonus! Although it was an Airbus and the inflight entertainment isn't ideal. There are a number of audio and video channels which is great but it's not on demand like the B777. The entertainment is on by the hour so you have to refer to the listings to see what is on in 'hour 4' for example. Low and behold, there wasn't anything I wanted to watch.

The most striking thing about being home and driving up to Edinburgh from Newcastle was the colour. The colour of the light, the colour of the fields and the trees at the side of the road. It really is in stark contrast to the brown's and hazy sunshine of Dubai. The yellows, the blues and the greens are fantastic to see. I've said before that spring was my favourite season and that remains the case.

Even Edinburgh is bright and colourful. Must have been all that rain. Alas, the sun was shining. That's all you can ask for really.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Normal

The great blogging drought continues. I don't have an excuse for it. I guess it comes and goes with more emphasis on the goes.

All that carry on with my colleague mentioned previously. I don't know what is going on at the moment. I've not seen him and no one has even mentioned it. A very odd situation. I'm now his direct supervisor at work so I will be seeing more of him this year. I might get the chance to find out more in due course. How do you approach that though? 'Eh, yeah, what happened to your wife?' Don't think that's the best way to go!

So, today is Saturday.

Today see Hearts and Hibs play in the Scottish Cup final. A derby no less. Hearts last one it back in 2006 whilst Hibs haven't won it since 1902. A long time ago! I have really no clue who will win it. It's too close to call. There will be goals, but for who, pass.

Not long back from the Airport. The missus was in India over the weekend on a recruitment drive. She flew out on Thursday night to Cochin. She arrived back earlier on. Sounds like it was a decent trip, but the timing could have been better, after all, we're flying back to Scotland on Tuesday morning!

Speaking of which, I'm packed. Suitcase isn't full but it does seem heavier than usual. I'm sure that it won't be over the 30kg weight allocation. It better not be. A couple more days of work as well. I've got a bit of a list of things to do actually. Plus I have an English course finishing on Monday morning. That gives me the afternoon to mark the tests and send out the results. If I get out on time, I'll be delighted. Then it'll be bye bye work, hello Scotland. It's been 9 months since we were last back.

Looking forward to it.

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

Call

Haven't been on this for ages and ages and ages. I can't say I've been all that enthusiastic about posting or writing in general. E-mails for example have been sent at work and that's about it. I just haven't had much to report.

Until yesterday.

At the end of each month we have a 'monthly meeting'. The whole department comes together for a day which varies between 'interesting' to 'fairly dull'. On this occasion, there were a lot of activities. I wasn't particularly involved in them and I was kind of on hand to help things 'flow'. Just before lunchtime, myself and 2 others had to go to collect lunch. This was to be supplied by a restaurant and we had to drive to the edge of the airport to collect 60 lunches for everyone, then get them to our area.

We left the rest of the department to get on with it whilst the 3 of us jumped into a mini-bus. I was in the back with one other guy - He's a Pakistani guy, and joined the department 2 weeks ago. He got married 3 weeks ago to a young widow. The widow has a 4 month old new baby from the previous marriage.

We were driving along when he got a phone call from some relatives in Pakistan. Then another phone call. And another. He then said, "I think my wife has been killed".

I thought he was joking.

He and his relatives had been trying to get into touch with his wife (she's in Lahore at present).

He made some other calls and waited to hear back from whoever he had called.

He told me that his father-in-law had not been in favour of the marriage yet the other members of his wife's family were totally fine.

Then another call came in. His wife had been shot and killed. So had his mother-in-law. The whereabouts of his father-in-law were unknown. As for the baby, no news.

I was there totally in shock. What the heck can you say to someone who has just received that kind of phone call?

I did what I could but really, no words are any good. In the end, I rushed him to our manager who then basically said 'go, do what you need to'.

The last thing this poor bloke said to me what 'thanks for the help'. What help had I been?

I just really wanted to write that down because it was all so surreal and tragic and utterly mental.

Only in the movies, right?