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What does that mean to me? Super15 rugby every Friday and Saturday! BRING IT! Along with my my new mate Bruce the BBQ and a few cold beers purchased locally, weekends are looking so much better!

So anyway, at least now I have a chance to get out there and burn some meat. Hmmmmm! Yummm!

But I do now have almost everything I need to be fully settled in and and officially a resident expat in Qatar. Saying that however, as soon as I’m “settled” I’m out of here! Dubai for the weekend! Cant wait.

Im going to sum it up real quick:

• Work – Awesome (still, after 6 weeks).
• Car – Paid for, comfortable, convenient.
• Place – Nice and taking a little getting used to.
• Accommodation – Great view, paid for, comfortable, convenient.
• People – So far, very good. Great in fact.
• Beer – EXPENSIVE! But yummy after a long day!
• Situation – Getting used to it. Its quieter than Im used to but its all quite nice still.
• Future – Bright. Just need to start getting out a bit more. Time for TimeOut.

There’s a couple of sweet (not candy) bars around the work and home locations. Nothing is really far from home. All the bars are located in swanky hotels which is a bit odd but easy to get used to especially when the hotel comes with free valet parking! NICE! Drinks are expensive as I mentioned but get over that bump in your head and you will be doing ok! And just for the record, copious amounts of booze and pork products are available although just controlled. Fair enough!

In closing I thought I would add a few pics of my humble abode. Loving it!

The Qatar Airways flight to Doha was incredible. The leg room was amazing. The service was impeccable. The food, lovely! That might have had something to do with the fact that it was a business class ticket. Loving it. I even went full cheesy and changed into the Qatar Airways PJs (which I kept as a souvenir), wound the chair down to full bed mode and slept most of the way. Respect!

Landing in Doha was ok. Crowded airport but why should I care? I wasn’t in any big hurry. Checking into the hotel was something else! Efficient, friendly, and very high standard. Too good for the likes of me. I was staying at the W which is easily one of the nicest places in the country and thanks to previous loyalty points with the SPG group I was auto upgraded to a suite.

I certainly did feel very welcomed and it was a spectacular place to stay. Food, service, people, room, everything. It was simply incredible. My suite was a 2 large bedroom place, both with en-suite bathrooms, a study a guest bathroom, a full sized kitchen and stunning lounge that overlooked the blinking lights of the Doha high-rises and busy little traffic 20 floors down. Way too much for little old me but I wasn’t about to complain!

Yup, I had landed. And off to my first day in my new life. Not before a 3 course, 5 star breakfast mind you!

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Being home was awesome. Too much great beer, too much incredible food, too much partying. Although, when one is enjoying one’s self and making the most of the time allowed, it can never be described as too much.

Time flies when you are having that much fun though. Dinners and braais (BBQs), meeting with mates, trips to the beach and even a visit to a strip club all kind of turned into a blur of time and before I knew it, I was packing up again and heading back to the airport. Bike back in the shed, house semi-packed up, doors and windows locked and the fading beeping sound of the alarm arming in the background. Adios home. See you around!

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It was great to be home. It had been a while since I was last around and it just felt good. So good that I wanted to get on the road and just go take a look around. I have long since sold my car and also long since bought a bike. The bike was in the shed and I was ready to get out, only 5 minutes after getting in.

It seems bike batteries don’t last as long as (I believe) they should. Fuel on, ignition on, lights, camera, push starter button and…. nothing! One hell of an anti-climax. Now without knocking Honda too much I think the fact that they “forgot”to put a kick start on the XR250 was just plain stupid. It now resulted in me having to push start an on/offroad bike. Pain in the ass. I had my mate Mullac around (as always when things turn to shit actually – no fault of his), so he was able to lend a pushing hand. Unfortunately on the grass, trying to push start this bitch just resulted in the back wheel locking up and ripping up my nice green turf. It was then decided unanimously (cos I don’t like pointing fingers, at myself) that we should move our efforts to the street.

One or two attempts later and still no go. This is when my overactive genius mind kicked in to play. Mullac has a pick-up, I have long straps in the house. It was tug and tow time! Brilliance. Straps out and hooked up I give Mullac the all clear and what do you know? First attempt, SUCCESS! So I take the bike inside and planned to let it idle for a bit while I got ready to head out. When I kicked the stand down with the bike still in gear, safety kicked in and killed the engine. DOH! Immediately tried the restart to a limp lifeless half-assed splutter turn over and then silence.

MULLAC!!!!! Come back!

Attempt number two was easier that the first because now we weren’t newbies at this. On the road and hey presto, fired into action. Awesome! Bike back in the yard and very carefully set outside the back door, in neutral, on the stand and me inside getting ready. The thump thump thump noise of the bike got irritating so I closed the back door. When I went out 20 minutes later I found a very quiet, not running bike which had clearly stalled and even more clear was the ignition was still on with headlamp burning. Nooooooooo!!! Tried to start it, even though I knew what the reality of it was, DEAD!

MULLAC!!!!! Come back!

Attempt number three was now just a matter of fact. Been there, done that, was wearing the t-shirt of complacency. No helmet, no gloves, no thought! Instead of lining up on the road like we did before I figured that’s just a waste of a few seconds and felt it would be easier to get a head start and just pull me onto the road. Clearly I’m no mathematical genius and forgot to realise that unlike a car, a bike requires balance. Coming off the curb meant the bike, due to the standard forces of nature would lean to the left. In order to counter this, the rider would lean the bike to the right. Equilibrium. Ok, YOU try lean a 80Kg bike to the right when you have a 1.(something) ton 3liter twin cab Toyota pick-up pulling you the left!

I don’t know which of Newton’s laws I can blame for this, possibly all of them, but in this mostly one sided tug of war, something had to give. Forces of nature took over, picked my stupid ass off the bike and threw me on the ground. The same forces simultaneously picked the bike up by the back wheel, turned it over and threw it on me with some substantial power. The forces of Mullac, not knowing all of this was carrying on behind him, proceeded with his action item of driving forward and unbeknownst to him continued to drag this bitch over me.

Winded and beaten with a severely bruised ego I sat on the side of the road and all I could think was, “Shit, if something is broken I am not going to be able to fly to Qatar next week. NOT GOOD!”

That’s when the bills started:

X-rays, doctor’s consultations and referral for these x-rays, pain killers, ankle and wrist straps, bike damage and now the requirement to hire a car for a week to get around. All in all around $600. Damaged ego, priceless. For everything else there’s Intelligence!

I’m grateful I got off as lightly as I did. It could have been worse. Thanks to the CAT boots I was wearing I didn’t require reconstructive surgery on my foot.

The memories of the incident are fading but the pain lingers on as a “nice” reminder that even out of the work place, safety starts at home! Engage brain before action.

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What’s the worst that can happen?

Sunday lunchtime, just sorting boxes out getting ready to start loading them and the damn building catches fire! Smoke everywhere pouring out from the 4th floor electrical room which had been engulfed in flames. I had enough time to grab the cat, my wallet and my passport before the entire 5th floor was engulfed in smoke. After charging down the stairwell and making my way back into some sunshine, I looked up and thought, “If this whole place goes up in flames, at least I wont have to pack”. Crazy things go through peoples heads in crazy situations. Good result in the end, the fire was put out and all I lost was the Sunday to pack.

Monday was now the packing day and the day for the shippers to come around and tell me what it was all going to cost. They then gave me 100 reasons why I couldn’t ship the stuff and there I was, a bunch of boxes full of personal gear and a gloomy outlook of 60Kgs of excess baggage.

My bike which was my love for 6 months is now seemingly impossible to sell. I cant ship it, I can’t keep it and I have no clue what to do with it. Friends of mine very kindly offered to take care of the details of the selling and I locked it up and left. So sad!

Tuesday came and went and there I was, on the big white bird heading back south for the very last time to go home for a few days before my new adventure.

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It is impossible to fathom how much crap can be accumulated in any place until its time to leave. Belongings, I had a lot. Junk, I had more! Getting rid of the junk was easy. It all just went in one big pile. I later separated the stuff into what could be given away to those less fortunate and what was for the rubbish pile. Unfortunately, what was left was still a fairly substantial amount of stuff. I had to deal with it some time but it could wait.

Work was interesting. Most people were sad that I was leaving but more jealous that I got my resignation in before them. I still wonder how many of those people will actually go through with it and jack it in as they said they were going to. Not really my problem now though is it?

Leaving a job is not that difficult when you have all your ducks in a row and have someone competent that can run with things after you have left. My main job was effectively over. What I set out to do was done so it was easy in my mind to walk. Ónwards to bigger and better things. Saying goodbye to people is never that easy.

Over the 14 months in Gabon there have been some great friendships, awesome trips, many dinners together and all in all, some very good memories. Some of these wonderful people threw me a going away bash at a really nice bar that I wished I had found before. Loads of shooters and way too many beers. The Saturday was always going to be a nightmare of a hangover. C’est la vie

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So, before Gabon I was bashing out my CV to any agency or IT job position that had an “Apply” button on it. I’m sure I sent so many emails that my gmail account was close to being on some spam watch list.

It turned out the company which I have seen the world with came to the party and offered me a guaranteed 30 day, no extension, no exceptions contract as a cover fill in position. Every contract I have done with these people had an extension, many exceptions and lasted a lot longer than 30 days. This was no exception (?). I was in Gabon for 14 months give or take. I must just make it known and clear that I am very grateful for everything I have learnt with these people and every experience in every country they have sent me to. Gabon included. Some times the toughest lives make the best experiences. They truly are the global entity. But 14 months later, by no effort on my part, it was time for a change.

Around the mid to end of Jan I was contacted again by an agency that I guess I fired my CV to well over a year ago. We started talking merely so I could understand what was out there and it all kind of snowballed from there. One email led to another, one phone call to another, interviews were had in quick succession and suddenly there it was, a new contract hit my mailbox and it was suddenly time for decisions.

Was this something I was prepared to go through? Did I want to jump ship? Would my current employer come to the party? Is the grass really greener elsewhere? Did I want to throw away 14 months of blood sweat and tears. Turns out when the money is right, the answer is yes to most of the above. All with the exception of the current employer coming to the party. That’s not to say they never tried, they just never told me they were trying until it was too late. My resignation was in and I was into the free-fall of working out my notice period.

I forgot to mention however, all of this was going on while living it up on an incredible trip to Thailand. Talk about putting a spanner in the works.

So now it was all happening. Landing back in LBV had a strange feel to it. Knowing it was to be my last.

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I made a conscience decision to not write about it as it would have turned into one negative bitching session after the next. Instead it was easier to simply suck it up, look for the silver linings and deal with whatever life had to throw at me. Strange how some things work out though. Around Xmas time of 2011, I was actually feeling happy and content with my life in the land of the Viper, Zeroville, Gabon. Just as I was feeling settled along came the universe and turned that on its head. As one bright spark put it, “Just gave you more opportunities.”

So I had my new found happiness, my Yamaha TTR250 which offered me immense freedom, a special person in my life to enjoy this freedom with, a more carefree attitude of life vs work balance and an acceptance of staying for another year at least. And then the curve ball. There went the rug out from under me landing me on my ass, in a splash of butter I might add. It was the wake up call I needed.

Time to move on.

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