It's Oh So Quiet

I've been busy, and there is still no internet connection in my apartment. I am ridiculously excited at the prospect of getting home. Only 52 hours to go.

That Was The Week That Was...

Pretty atrocious, really.

On top of the Martian activity I have had a really interesting week. A veritable roller-coaster of emotional turmoil and Jekyll and Hyde behaviour. Thankfully, I think we're through the worst now, and I can concentrate on the last week of this first five and look forward to getting home. I've been looking forward to that since I got here, to be frank.

So, after the night of torrid, horrid sleep deprivation, I didn't think it could get worse, but it did. On Tuesday, the Boss Man (#2) who was in town from the UK outlined a strategy for us all to keep the client boss (who is a schizophrenic, frankly) happy. I was at last going to get some real work to do instead of scratching around feeding off scraps. In a meeting with the client, it was apparent he didn't have much time for me, and didn't seem bothered at the prospect of me leaving the job - whereas he specifically named everyone else and said he wanted them to stay. Fair enough. I couldn't fault him for that, but then in my defence, I haven't been given any guidance, and the chances to use any initiative were zilch.

After the meeting, I found out that a particular person, who obviously feels threatened by our (specifically my) presence, had been bad-mouthing and poisoning my reputation to the client boss. That was nice of him. It was also established that this same person had no qualms about listening in on our conversations and running straight to his boss to tell him. We've basically decided that he can't be trusted from here on in, the weasily little turd that he is. The hair-style and moustache should have been a give-away.

Anyway, the Big Boss #2 got into a bit of a panic and told me I had to get stuck in and show my worth to the client, etc. Fine, I want to work. Twiddling thumbs is very boring and makes a 10-hour day seem like at least 15 and a half. Now that we have a local co-ordinator / team leader man who joined this week, there would be more guidance. I'm kind new to this line of work anyway, and that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

So BB#2 buggered off back to the UK, and then yesterday he sent me an e-mail saying it would be a good idea for me to delay my first week's leave for a couple of weeks to avoid over-lap with Mishter Bond, who is on leave the week after, which would appease the client. The fact is that there isn't actually any overlap: I come back the day he leaves. I took it up with the local team leader and put my case forward, and luckily he agreed that BB#2 was panicking for nought. He said I would be able to take my week off as planned. Hallelujah. I didn't want to have to let my kids down (any more than I already have) and I was also worried about making the right impression with the big bosses. It wasn't going to be an easy decision to make, but I think if it had come down to choosing, I would have chosen to go home. If it costed me my job here, that's fine. I can find another one with someone who isn't going to move the goalposts every two minutes.

In their defence, the client is volatile, and tends to blow the goalposts up rather than just move them. Even the new team leader man said as much. On Thursday, it was touch and go as to whether we would all get kicked off the job after the client had a mad half-hour and demanded the impossible. Luckily, he was placated by our people after a long meeting in the afternoon, and we are flavour of the month again. Knowing him, this will change again next week. It's nothing if not interesting.

Last night I needed beer, so I headed to the nearby hotel and treated myself to a couple of pints in the company of the new team leader. We've already established a healthy rapport and banter, and have had a couple of lively discussions about religion and politics. He is going to keep me on my toes, and that is definitely a good thing.

Roll on Thursday...

On a brighter note...

Something amused me and my smutty little mind the other day.

I bought a box of tissues - a must for any bloke living away from home - and printed on the bottom of the box are the words: CONTENTS: 200 PULLS

That's alright, but I'm usually too tired after the gym.

The War Of The Welds

No-one would have believed that in the early hours of a Monday morning, sleeping expatriates would be kept awake by CONRETE PUMPING TOSSERS.

I apologise now for the tone of this post, but I have had the worst night's sleep since I landed here. The Martians were back with a vengeance last night, banging and clanging, hooting and whistling away. I hoped that they would finish their evil doings by 10.30 or 11.00pm, but I was wrong. I was lulled into a false sense of sleepy security, only to be woken aat 12.30am by the sound of the Concrete Pumping Machine splattering its sloppy load all over the waiting re-bar.

AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

This went on till around 5am. I managed to sleep in small bursts, but didn't get any refreshment for it. When I'm faced with the Ras Laffan expedition every day, I really don't appreciate this kind of thing. I mean, for crying out loud, they are trying to build this place, but WHY do they have to ignore common decency and consideration when they do it? It's like the bubble syndrome I wrote about in my Dubai blog. You can see it in the way these people drive and behave in shops. They withdraw into the bubble, put on the blinkers, and don't think or seemingly even care about the effects of their actions on others. Unbelievable.

So I slept in for an extra hour. Fuck it. I'm not risking my life (any more than I have to) by driving to RL half asleep. If they dock my pay by an hour, I don't care.

Of course, the driving was to its usual standard this morning. I was cut across by some nutcase at a roundabout. He decided to switch from being inside me on the roundabout to the outside of me when he exited. A few choice words were uttered, I can tell you, before I noticed that the driver was a Westerner. If you can't beat them, shoot them, I suppose. I'm going to explode some time soon if I don't get my anger under control. I rolled my window down last night to shout, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" at some woman who pulled out of a parking space without looking and then pulled over again within 20 yards without indicating. She just looked at me with a blank expression; no acknowledgement; no reaction whatsoever.

Every journey by car is interspersed with dozens of examples of people seemingly intent on crashing into you. I am turning into a foul-mouthed racist idiot, because on most occasions I can guess which nationality is doing which particular bit of reckless or just plain crap driving, and I end up making comments I would be ashamed to hear from others. Always in the safety and anonymity of my car, I must add.

Phew.

That's it off my chest. Back to the grindstone. Back to counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds.

Until next time.

Unchained Malady

It's official: Time is a twat. It's slowed right down.......to..........a............trickle. It was going quickly, and the end of my first five week stint was in sight, but now....

I'm losing patience with the lack of any decent work and the lack of any kind of certainty as to where I'm going to work and what I'm actually going to do. If they want me to work here full time, I might just move into the camp. The driving back and forth to Ras Laffan is seriously ball-aching, especially on top of a ten hour day, and on Thursday night I was so tired I went to bed at 9.30pm and slept for ten or eleven hours.

Friday was very hot. High 30s, I'm guessing. I spent it doing some food shopping, drinking coffee in Costa (they have wi-fi!), napping and vegging out in front of the TV watching some really, really bad films. If you're ever tempted to watch Epic Move - don't. It is shite; truly awful.

For a break from the apartment I went for a walk towards the souk with the express purpose of having a small ice-cream at the parlour there, which someone recommended to me. I even thought about getting a haircut while I was out. But even at 3.30pm, most places were closed. The haircut idea fell by the wayside, but I carried on, and when I got to the souk, it looked like everything was closed there as well. Fortunately, one or two places were open, if deserted. It was like Ramadan at the Madinat Jumeirah all over again. I settled for a juice cocktail cafe place, ordered a medium mixed fruit cocktail, and sat watching the world go by. The world; that is if there had been a plague that wiped out 99.99% of the population. The cafe had a radio playing loudly, broadcasting Friday prayers. They go on for a bit, it would seem. Those mullahs have some stamina.

The drink was fucking enormous, coming in a large beer-style glass, and was bloody delicious. It was more like a milkshake, but made with fresh fruit. I'm glad I didn't order the large one, because it would have been either wasted or regurgitated. As I drank, I watched the waiters of the Iraqi restaurant across the path arguing about something. I don't know what it was about, but their passionate, exaggerated gesticulations provided some entertainment.

With the cocktail consumed, I walked back to the apartment block, buying some bottled water on the way. A moment of madness consumed me, and I decided to see how many flights of stairs I could climb in the block. I had walked a fair distance in the baking afternoon heat, and was sweating quite copiously already (hold that image), but I still did it. It would count as my optional cardio workout of the day. I managed 3 flights before giving up. I felt faintly pathetic, but at the end of a walk, it was probably OK. I'll give it a try now and again to see how my fitness is progressing.

So Friday night had to be an early-ish one. Work the next day, and that bloody drive again. As I settled into bed, my eyes were irritating me. They can get a bit irritated with allergies and the like, and it felt as if I was developing an infection. I thought about leaving it till tomorrow and getting some eye drops when I got home from work, but imagined myself waking up with glued-together eyes and decided to get up again and walk round the corner to the Pharmacy. The very genial man behind the counter gave me 3 types of eye drops to use, and I wasn't in the mood to argue. For a moment I thought he was going to try and sell me some Durex for my eyes as well.

It was a wise decision. The drops did their work and I woke up able to see. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Still in this apartment. Still alone. I keep waking up and expecting to turn over and see the bulge under the covers that is my wife, but it's just the pillows; silent, inanimate and unlovable.

Melon. Collie.

My doctor wrote a letter to my heart specialist describing me as a "melancholic, introspective man". Cheeky twat. I was hoping he would have called me a flawed genius.

Anyway, at least there is SOME good news. They've booked me in for my ablation procedure on 4th September. I will hopefully get rid of this blasted arrhythmia. I'm also hopeful that the very disciplined way I'm eating and exercising will help to cure it as well. Even at my low moments I am still able to resist bingeing on donuts and chocolate. The gym work is already paying dividends, and I hope that when I get home in 11 days' time, there will be a noticeable difference.

Toodle-pip!

What a Wasta-ful World

So there I was, minding my own business, approaching the West Bay area of Doha on my way home from work, and the armed police started blocking the roundabouts by parking their cars across the lanes. There was something afoot, that was certain. It was quite disconcerting to see the police with assualt rifles strapped to their backs. Fortunately for me, I wasn't in the flow of traffic subject to blockage, and kept going all the way into Doha and up to the traffic lights near the tennis stadium.

My luck suddenly changed. The lights turned green and I waited for the traffic to set off. And waited. And waited. I wondered what the problem was and thought about beeping my horn in that impatient style that I've picked up again, but remembered the road blocks and spotted another gun-toting police officer stopping the traffic up ahead. Traffic from other directions was still moving, but then everything stopped and an erie quiet fell upon the waiting cars, as if they were holding their collective breaths.

Moments later, a convoy of police cars and black government vehicles flew past, coming from the direction of the Corniche, and swung round the junction towards the Emir's palace. It was obviously the boss himself, or someone very close to him, heading to the palace or Diawan or something like that. Seconds later, the policemen disappeared and the traffic started moving again. The whole of Doha had been brought to a momentary standstill.

What a strange life it must be to live like that. No traffic jams - ever. All lights green, or just no lights. Do these dignitaries even know what those coloured lights that hang from gantries over the road mean? It must be great to go where you like, when you like, and not worry about getting stuck in the rush hour. To be fair, it was all very slick and well-drilled. It's obviously a well-rehearsed scenario. I'm just surprised I didn't hear about it on QBS radio.

Oh yes: QBS radio. What an enigma it is. It is torn between providing a very traditional public service to the populace and trying to be a cutting-edge source of entertainment. They have the cheesy, nasal, mid-Atlantic DJs with laboured banter who harbour ambitions of international fame but who wouldn't trouble hospital radio, and then they have complete amatuers who seem to have been plucked from the street and shoved in front a microphone. They play a bewildering mix of classic and new music from every genre imagineable, and there are sometimes some quite passable passages of music, and you forget what you're listening to, until the music suddenly cuts out in the middle of a song (not quite the needle scratching off, but close enough) and the station theme starts up. The station theme is a catchy Arabic warble played on strange stringed instruments, and it goes on for a minute or so before we are told that it's time for the news.

I always know what the first headline is going to be. Always. A meteor may have wiped out the entire Southern hemisphere or George Bush may have been assassinated through the application of a particularly vicious wedgie, but the first story is always about something His Highness the Emir has done that particular day, whether it's meeting a delegation from Timbuctoo to talk about the price of toothpaste or reading the latest copy of The Beano. In most cases, the entire entourage of Heir Apparents (unless they're otherwise engaged) and Ministers are named, which takes about 20 minutes to get through, such is the length of their names. The poor newscaster must get a sore throat. THEN, they mention the international news: "And finally, amphibious aliens from the Sirius star system have landed on the White House Lawn and want to buy some peanut butter. Crunchy, if possible." And then they play some more music before interrupting that after three minutes for the Call to Prayer.

But, who am I to complain? It's not my country, and that's the way they do things here. It's just different, I suppose. It's markedly different from the place about 250 miles East of here as well. In Dubai they have about half a dozen or so radio stations catering for expats, with professional(ish) DJs and news that might be of interest to expats and no sudden interruptions, unless something major happens to one of the Sheiks. The difference here is that they are obviously trying to maintain some sembleance of tradition in their one and only English-speaking (French-speaking for some of the day) station, and at the same time trying to cater for Western tastes, but the resultant mix is awkward and unweildy. I've been bewildered by some of the stuff I've heard, not least when they played an Eminem track without any censoring and the motherf*cking air turned blue. What was that about? I risk sounding disrespectful, but the interest level in the news must be low amongst the expat population, and the standards of production are sometimes appalling, so it's no wonder I resort to the mp3 player to keep me entertained on my long drives to and from Ras Laffan. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking this way.

On the other hand that's part of the charm of the place. It's trying to emulate some of what is happening in the UAE, but not selling its soul in the process, so these transitions are going to be longer and more difficult. I'm sure that in time there will be concessions to Western tastes and properly-run, commercial radio stations will surface and thrive. The country is developing quickly, with a lot of large projects in the pipeline, and there are going to be increasing numbers of expats coming here, so the demand is going to grow for it. Time will tell.

Moving on, and I am now at the end of my third week here. The time is flying by, and that's a good thing. I also know that my week at home will fly by, so I have to make the most of it, which I intend to. I'm in the zone now - a routine of rising early, driving, working, driving, gym, food, sleep. It's very tiring working such long hours, but having little time to dwell is the best bit thing about it. I'm not a good dweller.

Tomorrow is Friday, and a chance to recharge the batteries. No firm plans, apart from sleeping. If the Martians let me, that is. Then back here on Saturday and into week four.

Livin' On A Prayer

Oooooooh, we're half-way there....

Half-way to my first five weeks being completed and getting back home to the family. Seventeen more days of driving back and forth to Ras Laffan. I might just have listened to every single track on my mp3 player by then, although it has a nasty habit of playing the same ones over and over again. I'm getting sick of U2's "The Fly". Buzz off, say I, as I jab the skip button.


Saturday night saw a nightmarish journey back to Doha. For some reason beyond the comprehension of sane people, the security personnel of Ras Laffan Industrial City thought it would be a good idea to set up a check-point on one of the main arterial routes towards the exit. Not AT the exit: TOWARDS the exit. This caused a long queue at the beginning of my journey. By the time I got to the outskirts of Doha it was dark, and my mind was approaching a somewhat stressed-out condition. The roads are bad enough in daylight, but in darkness you have to allow for all the usual perils plus the fact that it is harder to see cars coming out of hyperspace in your rear-view mirror, and if they haven't got their lights on - which is often the case - it makes it even more difficult.


Thankfully, with some extremely defensive driving, I made it to Doha. Then I had the traffic to contend with. It's not usually too bad on my route, but there is excitement added to by the seemingly random scattering of barriers and cones in the West Bay area where they seem to be resurfacing the road in segments. These barriers aren't very well lit anyway, which makes for interesting, last-minute manoeuvres by everyone. At the roundabouts, I generally try and stick to my chosen lane, which nobody else seems to want to do. In a bewildering blur, cars cut across from both sides as you try to negotiate your way around and off the roundabout. I think I must hold my breath every time I negotiate one.


Then I made another mistake of judgement, deciding to try a little short-cut towards the apartment. I will never learn, because I ended up getting stuck in a traffic jam down a narrow street, at the end of which were some traffic lights which stayed on green for around three seconds. I finally arrived, with a headache starting to develop, at 7.30pm. I am essentially doing a thirteen-hour day, with the long drive each way and the ten-hour working day sandwiched in the middle. It wouldn't be so bad if I was busy, but I'm not.


Still, I knew I had a gym session to go through, and it was a great stress-buster. My flames of my dark mood and evil thoughts had died down to smoking embers. I didn't want to go postal tonight, and I didn't want to jump on the first plane out of Dodge. Until the next day, at least.

With my mood lightened, I ate some reasonably decent, unprocessed food and settled in front of the goggle box for an hour. My noble aspirations of writing a book or something whilst I'm here have yet to take any tangible form. I'm just too beat by the time I've got home, exercised, eaten and then collapsed. Boo-fucking-hoo, eh?


What makes it slightly less tolerable is not having phone or internet in the apartment yet. They still haven't sorted it, and it's starting to seriously annoy me. All this driving and lack of facilities has made me think about asking to move to the on-site accommodation, but when I consider the even worse lack of facilities out here, I think I'm doing the right thing. If only they (my superiors) would sort out something so I could work in Doha half the week, which they keep saying they will, it would be so much more pleasant.


One has to be stoical though. I know what has to be done, and I'm sure things will smooth out along the way. The eyes have to remain on the goal, and knowing that I only have another seventeen days to tolerate until I go home is a big help. If it was a longer rotation, I'm not sure if I could put up with it. I should - SHOULD - also get my first pay within a week or two, which will make things seem better.


And finally, a pic I found. It made me laugh.

How The Other Half Live

Here we go with week three of five. I used to think starting the week on Sunday was strange, but starting it on Saturday is even stranger. There is no weekend cross-over with the UK, and more importantly, no chance to watch the English football. Ah well, it's not a matter of life and death. Most of the time.

But back to Thursday night. I was invited to a barbecue at a colleague's apartment block, and with nothing better to do - not so much a window in my diary as an entire wall missing - I went along. I drove round, intending to have maybe a shandy at the most, and took a bottle of mango juice as my offering. Going without a bottle of plonk felt a tad awkward, but the host had insisted that this would be fine as he understood the booze acquisition situation. After a torturous half-hour drive in the treacle-like evening traffic, I arrived at the complex of apartments and found my way up onto the roof of the four-storey building. The space not taken up by lift machinery and air conditioning gubbins had been converted into a roof-top terrance, with a stone barbecue, a bar and some tables and chair. A water feature occupied one corner and little blue lights in the floor provided a chic ambience. Luckily, the haziness of the day was starting to disperse, and we were able to enjoy the slight breeze that tickled our faces without having to spit dust out every two minutes.

Being the weak-willed fool that I am, especially after a long week, I was soon plied with a few bottles of Corona beer, a fantastic beverage in this particular climate, and decided I would get a taxi home. I ate a good amount of food, including home-made burgers, coleslaw, chicken kebabs and prawn skewers. The prawns were accompanied by chunks of haloumi, a regional cheese, and I was somewhat surprised how nice it is. It's not very cheesy cheese at all, being creamy and salty, and works well on the grill as it chars more than it melts. By the time the desserts came out I was struggling. My stomach must have shrunk because I was only able to half-finish a small slice of cheesecake and just couldn't even entertain a piece of the splendid-looking, plump apple pie that was offered. I managed to force another beer down my neck, though.

So, with my calorie allowance for the weekend blown out of the water, I relaxed in the cool evening air and talked about politics, kids and the price of camel dung till well after midnight. I met a few more people who were all very pleasant. I managed to sneak a peak in the host's apartment during a beer-run and was immediately struck with shameful envy. The complex is owned and managed by the same company who run my block, but since it is brand new, the spec is much more modern, and much more pleasant. The apartments here are mainly two bedroomed affairs, however, aimed at families rather than singletons. At 12.30 people were starting to drift away or drift off to sleep so we lugged all the paraphenalia and left-over food down to the host's apartment and the party broke up. I shared a car back to the apartment block with another work mate who lives there and went straight to bed. The Martians were thankfully quiet that night.

Friday morning and I had a lovely long lie-in to recharge the batteries and sleep off the beer. I rose at 11am or so, and ordered a cab to take me back to the complex to pick my car up. Friday morning traffic is as light as it ever gets, so the drive took only five minutes. From there I went straight round to the Mega Mart supermarket, which my colleague had pointed out to me the night before, and marched purposefully towards the shop going over the shopping list in my head. I was determined to do it properly this time, and buy some real food to cook. My purposeful stride became a weak limp when I saw the security gaurds at the doors shooing people away as if they were annoying cats. The shop was closing at 11.30am for an hour. Something to do with Friday lunchtime prayers.

Fortunately there is a Costapacket (Starbucks' evil twin) coffee shop next door, so I went in there and had myself a capuccino and a croissant, reading the local English-language paper to pass the time. There were locals and expats sitting side-by-side, enjoying a Friday coffee. There is quite a clever segragation for smokers in there, with a glass partition closing off one side for those who want to add nicotine to the caffeine. On the non-smoking side, the Western expat families stuck out like a sore thumb, and I was minded of the posey expat crew of places like the Lime Tree Cafe in Dubai, with the sunglass-on-head yummy mummies and the flip-flop-adorned dummy daddies ignoring their krazy kiddies as they tore around the place with their gobs emitting a constant, high-pitched screech. I tuned out and read the paper front to back.

That ate the hour up quite nicely, and when I returned, the shooing gaurds had gone and I started my expedition. There was a good mix of local, American and British produce, but it was a constant challenge to monitor the prices of things, especially imported items. There were cereal bars for over five quid a box, for example. This balances out with the cheapness of the fresh produce, so it's fair enough. I went in with the intention of spending 300 Riyals, and left having paid 350. I had enough reasonably-healthy and not-too-processed food for the week, probably more, so I was happy; a real Happy Shopper. It's so much easier and less of a ball-aching chore when you do it for yourself.

Back home, the goods were unloaded. I fancied a bit of gym-time to burn off some excess calories, but found the place was closed. The sign told me it was open again at 4pm, so I returned to the flat and had some lunch/dinner/afternoon sustenance of scrambled eggs. I'd forgotten to buy salt, but it was passable. I spent the next hour or two playing stupid solitaire games on the laptop and watching the Jeremy Kyle show on UKTV, then at 4pm on the dot I headed back up to the gym. It was still empty and officially closed. The doors were all closed but not locked, so I was able to get in, turn on the lights and AC and have a quick blast on the exercise bike. I was half-expecting someone to come and admonish me for daring to exercise unsupervised, but they didn't, and I made sure I turned everything off as I left.

Then it was time to decide what to do for the rest of the day. I toyed with going to see a football match again, but fancied a change and decided a trip to Villagio mall was on the agenda. A bite to eat and a movie was what I hoped to achieve, and I thought this new mall would still be relatively quiet. How wrong I was, and the traffic on the way there should have been a warning. It was mayhem, and I ended up parking a good distance from the entrance. I thought City Centre mall was bad, and had avoided that, but this was the same. I'm slowly learning that Friday evening is the time everyone in Doha gets out and about and hits the malls. Still, a bit of food and a movie would do me good, but I couldn't find a cinema there, even though I had gained the notion of its existence from somewhere. A dream, perhaps. The lack of melting clocks should have been a give-away.

As it was getting on, and it was too late to change my mind and head back for the football game, I had a plate of lukewarm spaghetti in an almost-empty Pizza Express and headed back to the quiet, empty apartment. I texted the wife to see if she would ring me for a chat, but she was out at the end-of-season rugby club thing with the kids (the boy plays rugby), and she couldn't. She reminded me that she was going to a friend's 40th birthday fancy dress party on the following evening, so she couldn't talk to me then, either. One sarcastic reply later and she promised to call me in the afternoon. Thank God these weekends aren't two days, especially with no internet access provided yet. As it turned out, I did watch a movie. Little Miss Sunshine was on one of the movie channels, and even though I probably missed the first half-hour, it passed the time till bedtime.

Do The Desert Shuffle.

It's Thursday again, and nearly two whole weeks have slipped into oblivion forever , joining the other two thousand weeks that went before it, never to be seen again. That's nearly fourteen thousand days; 328,000 hours; twenty million minutes; 1.2 billion seconds. And the clock never stops ticking over and over. Strange how we are so obsessed with time. We record it and monitor it and agonise over it, but we never know the exact time that it's going to end.

Too heavy. I'll move away from the psuedo-philosophical ramblings for now.

I'm getting used to it now: the routine, that is. I am getting up at 6am without feeling too tired, showering and dressing in 15 minutes, grabbing a banana and a cereal bar and heading out to Ras Laffan for the hour and however long it might take me, depending on traffic and camel deployments. (See what I mean about time? It rules our lives.) My mp3 player is keeping me sane on these long drives. I put it on shuffle -> all tracks and it works well most of the time, only impelling me to hit skip when it chooses to play a section of an audio book I downloaded or some test music loaded by some whizz at the factory. My music tastes are eclectic, so I can listen to a real variety of stuff, from Abba to Radiohead via AC/DC and The Smiths.

My going "home" routine is becoming familiar, and I've learned to time it just right to avoid the worst traffic leaving Ras Laffan and still drive in daylight for most of the journey, as the night can fall so quickly in this part of the world. The average temperature is rising every day, but it is still reasonably comfortable. That said, the weather has been very hazy and dusty for the last few days. The sky has adopted a milky quality, and objects appear gradually from the haze as you approach them. The flames atop the large flare-stacks appear to float in mid air, like torches on an invisible dungeon wall, until you get close.

When I get "home", I either head for the gym or try in vain to connect to the internet. I've been in the apartment for a week now, and they still haven't connected me. It is a minor irritation, but on bad days it seems just another annoyance on top of the others, accumulating to make me lose perspective and send me over the edge. So far, I've been able to keep the negative thoughts to a minimum, and keep reminding myself of what the mission here is, and that I will be home in three short weeks for my first break.

Last night was a big test of my resolve. I decided that I would find a supermarket and buy some proper food to cook instead of eating out or concocting more batchelor/student meals out of tins and packets, but I ended up caught in a horrible traffic jam on C Ring Road, and gave up the search. I found a way out of the jam eventually and got back to the flat at 7.30pm, hitting the gym straight away, before cooking myself some noodles and chicken sausages. Processed foods are generally the work of the devil; tempting yet evil. The worst thing is that I can cook quite well when I want to. I'm just using the excuses of time (again) and lack of proper cooking facilities (half the kitchen implements are either missing or broken). It's not like I need to do Heston Blummenthal-style laboratory gourmet with liquid nitrogen and a JCB, I just need to make something quick but fresh. I will definitely go to Carrefour or somewhere like that tomorrow and address the situation. This latest health kick I'm trying will only work if I do it with full commitment. I need some variety, because the daily offering at work of cold rice and chicken can wear one down after a bit. It's free, so I can't really complain. OK, I will a bit.

After eating my food I had a hot bath to soothe my aching muscles. The three sessions I've done this week have been hard work but rewarding. I was planning on an early night, maybe turning in at 9.30 or 10.00pm to get a good night's sleep and early start, but I'd forgotten about the Martians in the pit below my window. They were hammering away at whatever dreadful creation (most likely formwork) until gone 10pm, and I was convinced they were going to go indefatigably through the night, keeping me awake with the constant metallic pounding. I watched a bit of TV, then went to bed, and listened to my mp3 player for half an hour to drown it out, and when I pulled my earphones out, the hammering had stopped. Phew. So at least I got a decent sleep.

Back to today, then, and I'm looking forward to a barbeque tonight. A colleague has invited a few of us round to his apartment complex after work tonight for a little soiree. They have an area on the roof that can be used for parties and the like, so it could be quite pleasant. I'm going to be good and maybe have one or two beers and limit the troughing as much as possible; I don't want to undo my good work this week.

Then tomorrow is Friday: the day off. I might go to another football match. I think there's cup semi-finals at the same stadium I went to last week, and the final is the following weekend at the Khalifa stadium, which I think is the big new one they used for the Asian games. If I get to go to one, I'll write about it on here.

TTFN.