Quick Catch-Up... in All Good Things

Very brief. It’s 2am and tomorrow is my last day in England for a month. Although I did manage to arrange things to actually be home for ten whole days in between Hong Kong & Qatar and Singapore & Australia, which is good, then I’ll be home for a week before Italy in November.

Hong Kong was okay - got out of there just before a typhoon and the demonstrations. Work felt extremely strange, as I sort of wondered if I could even do it, given a break of nearly a year. Turns out I could. But I was mostly living on messages and photos from my friends in Tokyo (I’m seeing them in just a couple of days!!!!!), although on the last night I happened to bump into a bunch of friends of mine from England, who I hadn’t seen for several years and we had a great time together.

Qatar both was and wasn’t so good. I was working with Annette again, for the first time since last September in Qatar, which was nice. The job was horrendous, but at least we had the only arbitrator in the world who is rigid about not starting before 10am or sitting beyond 5pm, so that’s the only thing that saved us. I got very confused with time, as I worked Wednesday-Friday in Hong Kong, flew to Qatar via London overnight on Friday and got there on Saturday night, worked Sunday-Tuesday, had Wednesday and Thursday off, then worked Friday-Wednesday, then flew home to London on Thursday. By the time last weekend came around I was totally lost and baffled.

But last weekend....OMG. It rivals the last weekend in Tel Aviv, seriously. We’d been looking forward to it for months, but it happened not remotely like we had anticipated. Much better in many ways - oh wow oh wow oh wow, SO MUCH BETTER!!!! - but it also cost us Eva’s friendship. She betrayed Annette and me rather badly over various events, and I’m sad, mostly because it was so unnecessary. She’s a very silly girl, and managed to lose not only our friendship, but also that of the man she’s been in love with since she was 14.... But Eva aside, we had amazing fun with other friends, had wonderful things happen we could never have dreamed of, and tomorrow I’m going to see the film in the cinema that we watched being filmed live last Sunday. Annette saw it on Thursday and says there are several shots of us (sitting in our unexpected seats in the middle of the front row!), which she said was rather surreal to see in a cinema. I can’t wait to see it tomorrow. I’m so glad they’re rebroadcasting it.

But I’ve been very busy working all week on depositions, and spent today (Saturday) editing over 300 pages, and still have hours of document checks ahead of me tomorrow so that I’ll be free to leave for Singapore on Monday. Annette’s leaving first thing tomorrow morning, but somehow when I booked the flight a month ago I knew that I needed to leave on Monday instead of Sunday. Turns out I was extremely right.

It was my birthday yesterday. The day itself wasn’t that great since I had to work, but my celebration began last weekend and will continue for the next two glorious months, so I don’t exactly care. I’m living in a happiness bubble right now, one that I am going to do all in my power to learn how to conjure up whenever I want it. So far, it’s going really well. I’ve learned a lot this year through meditation and visualisation. I can now pretty much control the panic attacks at all times, other than when I have to fly. I still need chemical help to cope with flights. And, oh, God, I have a 14-hour flight coming up the day after tomorrow..... But I will survive it, even if I have to drug myself unconscious, and the pay-offs once I arrive in the Far East and Australia are going to be magnificent.

I can’t wait.

Okay, that turned into a bit of a longer update than I intended. Seriously, though, so much has been going on. Last week Annette and I sat beneath the stars beside the Persian Gulf, marvelling that in the next two months we will be beside the South China Sea, the Tasman Sea and the Mediterranean as well. Despite the fact that I’ve spent my whole life travelling constantly, that still manages to astound me.

(PS I have suddenly become a Captain America fan. Who knew??)