shimweasel

life is somewhat frantic lately. I’ve moved from being an expert doing difficult things to a newbie doing chumpy things: I’m in charge of a gang of electricians now, but my role is more or less an interpreter. Stephen tells me what he wants done, and I point the Indian electricians at the problem - the last three times I tried to actually do some work, Basheer looked at me with a funny grin, then undid all my work and redid it competently.

This rapidly becomes demoralising.

Still, Basheer is a major league gun, and I don’t take too much offence.

Today was mostly spent outside, clambering all over a set piece. I drank about 5 litres and sweated 10 - working outside in Qatar is a whole other experience. I’m also the least graceful climber they’ve ever seen, I think: while they jump and skip over the structure, I laboriously find my three points of contact. I’m always happy to provide entertainment.

Oh, for those keeping score: my tonsillitis is still intact, apparently. On some different meds now. They offered to rip them out at the hospital, but apparently the 1st of December is the first appointment I can get, which is the date of the opening ceremony - I suspect that I’ll be awake 20 hours a day round that time, so there doesn’t seem much chance of getting surgery recovery time. Till then, beer is my medication.