Goodbye Dubai - almost in All Good Things

So, I'm going home again. I came out here to do four jobs, and the first one has finished and the other three have all disappeared for various reasons. Because of bank holiday weekends and the end of summer, though, although my first job ended yesterday, the office here wasn't able to change my flight - everything is full! Eventually they managed to buy me another ticket, but on ghastly Qantas this time and going to Gatwick, not Heathrow, for 2am on Monday morning. Apparently it's the only flight they could get me on between now and 4 September!

I don't mind. That means I get three days off in Dubai to relax and maybe do some sightseeing. Unfortunately it's too hot to go to the beach during the day, and they close the beaches in the evenings. That's what I'd like to do best, but the apartment I'm staying in is nowhere near the beach. Well, obviously it is because the whole of Dubai is on the coast, but it's about a 20-minute taxi ride to the nearest public beach and then it's totally exposed to the sun, so that won't do. And I'm not really up to going to a private beach all by myself...

I wish I had a view of the sparkling waters of the Persian Gulf from my balcony instead of a patch of desert and some buildings and a car park - although I do love the way the desert intermingles with the buildings here.

Annette is at Heathrow waiting for her flight to Muscat, Oman. I was supposed to be doing that job originally, but then was swapped onto the other jobs that have now settled and changed dates. I'm disappointed, because I'd have liked to have gone to Oman. And it would have made a LOT more sense for them to have put me back on it when the other jobs cancelled, since I'm already in the Middle East and Annette isn't - but Annette's worked for this company for many years and is a close friend of the owner, Nicole. Nicole and I are friends from back in our Hong Kong days, but not close the way she is with Annette. So I get it, but it still makes me sad. Especially since I so badly need the money!

I have no idea what I'm going to do about money, but I'm not thinking about it for now. There's nothing I can do. It's still the summer holidays in the UK, so there's no work, not for another month at least - and by that time I'll (hopefully) be in Doha, Qatar with Annette, and then it'll be almost time for us to go to Singapore and for the tour to resume.... I can't wait. Seriously. Seven more weeks....

I've had a marvellous day today. It's Friday, the religious day off, the quiet day. For many workers here, it's their sole day off. I watched the local weekly cricket game - held in the evening just before sunset this time of year - which I can see from my balcony, and caught up with a lot of my friends on Twitter and discovered a variety of bits and pieces of news that made me very happy. I think Nicole thought I was a bit strange this week when we worked together, the way I was constantly on my phone whenever we had breaks - but that's where the majority of my social life happens these days! I get really stressed about having to go out and socialise in person, even with people who I'm good friends with, and thanks to Twitter and WhatsApp and Facebook, I can now have a thriving social life from the safety of my own bedroom (wherever in the world that bedroom happens to be). I love it so much.

I'm really excited about the next few months. I don't know what's going to happen with Will, though. He's been absurdly nice to me since I got to Dubai. Until this week, for all the years we've been together, we've been in contact every single day, whether by phone, email, text or in person, other than a couple of days when one or the other of us was in some random part of the world where we couldn't get phone coverage. I usually text him good morning and good night, at the very least, when I'm away, because I know it means a lot to him, even when he doesn't reply. For the first time since we got together, I stopped doing that this week. And he's been texting me constantly! It's ridiculous. He sends me funny pictures, asks me how my day's going, says good morning and also goodnight....

It pisses me off. I've been polite back, friendly, I guess, but I don't initiate anything. I try to find other funny pictures on Twitter that I can send him so I don't have to say anything. I usually send him pictures, so it's not unusual (him sending ME pictures is, though), but it's never been in lieu of talking to him before...

I'm glad I have a few days before I have to go home. I'm not ready to see him again yet.

I hope he IS going to move out. I can't really afford to live on my own right now, but I don't care. I need him gone.