Tumbleweed blowing through the office

Today is Thursday and for those of you paying attention you will realise that that means Friday in your world – and POETS day comes a little earlier !  On a Sunday (the first working day of the week), if you don’t get in early then you won’t get a desk cause we all hot desk and there is generally a team meeting on Sunday morning, with a short motivational chat from the Grande Fromage, and they come out of the woodwork to see and be seen. 

As the week goes on they disappear back to Abu Dhabi and all points East where they can get proper haircuts and get cheaper beer – back to the bright lights.  Last Thursday was a public holiday here and the Thursday before that I had to go to head office for an admin exercise so this was my first Thursday out in the desert (and my first weekend, but we’ll get around to that in a bit).  At 9 this morning there were 6 of us in the office, by lunchtime there were 4 and by 2.30 there were 3.  That went up when someone came back to collect something and someone came across from another office to see if anyone wanted a lift back to Abu Dhabi but by 3.15 there were just 2 and by 4 we had locked up and gone !

The hotel is the same.  My psychopathic triathlete and her team have all gone to Dubai (as they normally do apparently) and most of our team (usually around 15) have disappeared to all points of the compass for various reasons – so best guess is that there are 3 of us for the weekend, and two of us are going to Oman tomorrow (I’ll explain that later as well.

Here is a random picture of a camel (well, two actually) crossing the road this morning – because I know that you all like camels, or so I’m told !

Looking at the number of legs, there might actually be three there (so, buy two and get one free !)

I can’t remember if I have already told you this and I can’t be bothered to go back and look so you’ll just have to indulge me – tomorrow I have to leave the country, for reasons best known to the immigration authorities, to change my visitors visa for an employment visa.  I have the employment visa right next to me here in my room but apparently there has to be immigration stamps in my passport and the only place I can do that is at the border (not a cosy office somewhere in Abu Dhabi because that would be way too simple !).  So myself, and one of my colleagues have at least a 6 hour round trip to the Oman border and back, for what is likely to amount to 10 minutes in Oman.

I haven’t discussed the potential for this trip with my colleague yet, and I don’t know whether the border crossing is just a hut in the middle of the desert, but we should at least try for lunch whilst we are there !

Another random picture of camels is now appropriate I think…..

There are loads of these little compounds dotted around ( as well as huge racing camel stables, but we can do those when we get a little closer I think).  Apparently the Bedouin come in from the desert for the winter and just keep their camels in a little pen like this.  I assume that they then take them out round the track for exercise etc and feed them something) although God only knows what – cause there ain’t much growing out there !)

Right, time to post this up and get on with a little brandy and cigars I think.  I type this out in Word first (cause it spell checks it for me and doesn’t get lost every time the internet goes down) and then up-load it when I’m satisfied that it’s as good as it’s going to get – and believe me, I’m easily satisfied.  The point is that sometimes it gets written over several hours and then posted in a matter of minutes.  Tonight has been one of those sometimes.  I’ve just returned from dinner where it’s seafood night, with a lobster BBQ out on the restaurant terrace – the pepper steak was wonderful (can’t be doing with all that fancy stuff – and they wanted extra money, which was where it all fell apart.  I suspect Mrs G will be going for the giant BBQ’d prawns and lobster tails for an extra £8 !)

Hey ho – today’s inventory isn’t very interesting, same cigars, bit of brandy, few Dirhams for laundry and falafel, weather same old, food was a lovely seafood buffet (with pepper steak……).  Ad revenue has shot up following my little statistical info yesterday and a bit of hard marketing to a couple of friends that I bumped into in the ether over the last 24hrs – it now stands at £79.28 so thank you and keep it up please.

I’m back off to the terrace for some more brandy and cigars with the other two colleagues who are staying here, just to be sociable you understand……..