Erase and Rewind

So what has been happening?
Well, for almost all of the last two months (since the company handed me my notice) our lives have been on hold and our emotions in turmoil. Now at the eleventh hour, the company withdraw the notice and I am employed again!!!
At first I had mixed feelings, but after a few days contemplation I feel happy with our lot and ready to tackle my work with gusto.
Back at the house, we have had the builders in, due to a major leak that flooded our housemaid’s room. To be honest it was perfect timing, now knowing that we are staying, it has taken us away from being self absorbed and focused our attention on another persons problems.
So Jenny came to tell me that there was an inch of water on the floor of her room and when I went to investigate it was obvious that there had been a long term problem that she had kept quiet about. Grrrr…. I can only fix a problem if I know about it, so speak up, it’s so frustrating!!!!
So, we called our landlord Ali, who is a very nice chap, and soon after the builders came around to fix the problems! Yes, more than one I’m afraid.
This involved gutting Jacob’s bathroom, fixing a hole in the roof slab, replacing a valve to the water tank and completely renovating Jenny’s room.
Like most builders here, they are cutting corners and playing silly buggers, as a result Becky, Jenny and myself are running a tag team for project management. On several occasions I have had to do an irate rant in order to get them doing their work properly. My favourite episode so far was when Becky rang me to say they had reinstalled the bath back to front. All works were stopped until I got home to drag the foreman over the coals. Imagine, a plug up yer bum at one end or a tap in the back at the other, quite frankly I am surprised they didn’t try and install it as a shower cubicle!
As a result, the promised six day programme has now entered its third week, Becky is frustrated as we have guests arriving soon and the house is in turmoil, Jenny just wants her room back, and I would just be happy if they bothered to turn up.
The weekend turned into one long list of jobs, partly because of the builders but also due to prior inactivity on my part. With the immanent arrival of my sisters family in early April, I had a list of jobs around the house and the fitting out of Jenny’s replacement furniture.
Over the two years that Jenny has been with us, we have come to realise that she is a chronic hoarder, I mean she keeps absolutely everything. Therefore with the remodelling of her room, we were resolved to provide as much storage space as possible and, so I organised some carpenters from a friendly contractor to spend their Friday building Jenny some seriously strong fitted shelving units.
Along with my jobs around the house, the last day of my weekend stretched into the night and concluded with varnishing by torch light.
Unfortunately, I expect next weekend to be just as busy.
Speaking of keeping yourself busy, by chance I read an article in the local free rag (the Week) about Aikido in Muscat and recognised one of the people. Actually, recognising people in the paper is like a local sport in a place as small as Muscat and, it is normally a surprise when you cannot identify at least one person.
A couple of phone calls later and I had committed myself to attend my first lesson.



So for the foreseeable future, I will be spending two evenings a week falling over on a regular basis. Oh, and if you were wondering that is not me in the photo, although I suspect if it were, I would be the person in mid air, but no where near as graceful as shown.