What an eventful last few days its been!!

Hi folks - bit late this week - I have a camera (treated myself to a Sony 12.1 pixles!!) and forgot to bring in the new lead for it to work to download photos.

Anyway, to say the last week has been eventful is an understatment really! It has been manic. Last week was a round of the usual gym classes on Tuesday. Monday I took a friend to a tailors in town to get her a dress made for a wedding. It was all quite easy actually (the word easy is not well known in Saudi!) - they measured her, we then took a cab to a material shop, got material straight away, and took it back! It was far too simple! So, I missed boot camp last week. However made up for it last night - had an excellent workout in a million degrees heat. A/C working overtime at the moment, so everywhere is hot! Its only 40 degrees today - was 45 yesterday - not nice!!

Wednesday night I had Lorraine and Tracy round for a "hen night" - Lorraine gets married in December in Thailand - we just had tea and chatted really - it wasnt very wild!! Thursday up early for Bahrain - bought my camera and mouched around the shops, then went to Bushido for lunch - that was very nice - all very sophisticated. Back at 3pm too - Gary bought us back and it only took one hour on the causeway. Had a quick break at home, then out again at 7pm to the US Consulate. There werent many folk there but I spent most of the night chatting to folk and feeding the stray cats beef burgers!

We came back around midnight - pretty early, but up again next morning for brunch in Bahrain. Unfortunately, Tracy, the friend I was travelling with, took ill just before we left, so myself and Breige (who's birthday it was!) had a mad hopsital dash with her. She had a panic attack - it was all very scary, but fortunately, she is ok now. We had missed the taxi to Bahrain by this point, but fortunately Ayon was driving and turned around and came back for us, so once we got Tracy settled and her other friend came over, we left for Bahrain - nice journey me sqaushed up in the back of a Porche!!!

Birthday girl Briege (in black dress!!)

We got Breige there in time for her birthday celebrations though. The brunch was fine - its not really my cup of tea though - just a load of drunk folk - I paced myself and by the end of the night was the only soberish person there. We went to Fiddlers around 3.30pm and then it got messy - some of my friends were crying over various things (ie men!) - it was all rather emotional - I was glad to leave at 5pm... came back with 2 friends - both of whom were worse for wear and were challenging to say the least on the ride back - one of them decided to go and find a bathroom on the causeway on the way back when we were foot deep in a huge traffic jam - I was hanging out the window to try and get her back to the taxi as there were about 100 cars in the queue!!!

Anyway, eventually got home at a pretty reasonable time - around 6.30pm, so not a late night really.

Saturday I was teaching again at the gym and I had pilates on Sunday which was pretty busy - followed by a nice massage.

Paul's inquest started yesterday and is set to finish today at lunch time. Its all going mostly in Kelly's favor as I believe so hopefully there will be a good outcome. It seems it will probably be accidental death, but the company he worked for really do not have a good safety record at all and will certainly be penalised for this it seems... I feel like a weight has been lifted really though finally - its been a long wait to get this far...

Work has been busy too this week - I am still fighting with the new e-travel system! It drives me insane. I am teaching again tonight - most of the night and tomorrow I am going to attempt to catch some stray cats on camp! Thursday I am in Bahrain (yet again!) and then back for 3 parties - as yet I havent made up my mind which ones to go to! Friday I am having a day in Saudi and also playing squash too...

I also was sooo tempted to take in a kitten I found outside my apartment, but its not fair to keep it in all day. Its white and ginger, looks a few months old and has one brown and one blue eye - it is soo cute - I am going to try and re-home him - my friend is looking after him at the moment... he got stuck in a yard attached to a ground floor apartment the other day and me and Kelly were scaling walls to rescue him!!!

Anyway, thats all from me.

PLEASE WRITE SOON,

Jill

xx

So,