Completed the first week of my fourth visit to Qatar, and missed the freezing Uk weather by a day. I just got back from the gym. I have managed to keep myself quite busy this week. We have recently been joined by my good friend Vipul, from the Bracknell office (right picture). He seems quite happy to be here. We were also joined by Sandy Roberts, from the Aberdeen office, who I had not seen for about eight years, and who I also worked with at Phillips Bacton Gas Terminal about twelve years ago. Our safety representitive fainted and collapsed to the floor yesterday. He was assisted by one person, while I went for help. I got a first-Aider, and the medics were called. I wondered why one of the people was smilling when I asked for her help. It turned out to be a drill, which her and the safety rep were in on. So I felt a bit silly, but we were told that we responded well, and the medics were on the scene within ten minutes of the incident. On a lighter note, I had a productive two weeks off. I managed to get my central heating pump and three-way valve replaced - central heating is now working perfectly. I also got my bathroom walls re-plastered. But best of all, I got my new carpets put in the bedrooms, landing, stairs and downstairs hallway (left picture). The transformation is just amazing. It now looks and feels so warm, and beats walking on floorbaords. Also got my new car - Red BMW 1 series coupe, lovely car, but nothing but hassle - Suppliers forgot to deliver it, until I phoned up at 17:15 and reminded them. It took four fuel cards before I got the correct one (three of them for my old car). The wrong car was entered on the Car fuel card mileage website, which took nearly a dozen emails to correct. Then I was unable to enter my end of month mileage. Next the Fleet Logistics website had the wrong fuel card number. I finally managed to get all these things sorted out yesterday. Now I cannot wait to get back home again (January 6th) to enjoy my new car; hassle-free, I hope. See you all soon.
Had an "All you can eat and drink" afternoon, 12:30 to 16:30, at the Hayatt hotel in Doha, with the guys: Martin Turner, Jeff Ng, Neale Rogers and Adrian Thomas from Australia, Stefan Petrov from Romania and Joe Wegener from London. The food was amazing and the waiters just kept topping the drinks up all afternoon. After that we walked to the Admirals bar (right picture, from left to right - Martin, Neale, Jeff, Rob, Stefan, Adrian, Joe) where we stayed until 19:00 - the drinks were really flowing there too! After that, the bus picked us up and took us back to camp, where we had another few drinks at the bar, to round off the day. A long afternoon and evening, but really great fun.
