Today did not start well. I thought it had, tearing round the flat eating my museli, yoghurt and apple juice concoction while filling the dishwasher and my work bag simultaneously... which had huge potential for disaster already.
The dark edges started to creep in when I left the car park and found a traffic jam in the street, leading to the normal crawl of cars on the road leading to the main road. A two road jam. Fantastic. So I'm sitting in the jam, realize the car has no petrol, lean over to my bag to check cash levels and... No wallet. It's still in my beach bag from yesterday. Turning round wasn't an option, so I had to turn the a/c off, scrabble together coinage (5dhs... Not even one quid) and sheepishly ask the attendant for 5dhs of petrol.... At which point he pointed out the petrol cap was on the other side of the car.
At this point I should have crept home in disgrace and started again, but no, I'm now in the bank waiting for 3 cheque books which they can't give me because, for some infathomable reason, my signature isn't in their system.
The whole point of all this rushing and kerfuffle is to get all the bits in line to take delivery of my shiny new jeep before Friday, when I'm off for a weekend jaunt with about 30asw'ers to a hotel in Fujeriah. Random. Going on two wreck dives during the day on Fri which should be great as I haven't been diving for ages!
The wrecks are Inchscape 1 and 2 - coastguard boats deliberately cleaned and sunk when they'd outlived their usefulness chasing goat smugglers dashing from the many nooks and crannies of the Mussendam across to Iran. They smuggle cigarettes, goats and sheep apparently - I can't imagine the livestock are terribly happy about small low boats with large outboard motors outrunning customs, and the cigarette cargo, and indeed the smugglers themseleves, are probably pretty pungent on arrival. I think i just discovered a brilliant customs ploy - loiter in port, do the sniff/fear factor test on arriving livestock, those chilled and clean go thru, terrified ones covered in shit emerging from small boats... SMUGGLERS. Foolproof. Amazing.
Nothing happening in the bank. Apparently it shut ten mins ago but there's no sign of that - I'm one of about 45 people lounging about waiting to get served. This branch would be a perfect filmset if you were doing a robbery scene - everyone is helpfully standing in neat lines, with lots of space and light and clear paths for the villans to dash in and shout dramatic things. I hope they don't, obviously, as I'd never make my meeting then.
On that note though, there's been a big hoo-ha about atm fraud this past week. What with that, earthquakes and the arrival of tax next year, my reasons for being here are slimming. Still, the sun prevails, especially as we head in to lovely winter temperatures, so I shall park those wanderlust thoughts till May at the earliest. I will satisfy myself planning the epic trip from moscow to beijing, and stop wondering what the next career move might be.
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