Blessed Friday

Not yesterday, nor today. Pakistan has embraced Black Friday sales with its usual ready enthusiasm for consumerism. But one can’t insult the holy day, of course, hence the advertisements. Work was tedious and frustrating, and the only good thing about it was that I brought my own lunch and sat in the garden by myself […]

Grumpy

Second day in the enclave. I am slightly grumpy today as the stir of excitement of meeting others I knew, and reminiscences, faded. Now it’s to work, to navigate all the inconveniences of working for a large organisation, and several months ahead of it. The office has a cafeteria which serves a fairly mediocre lunch […]

First day in the enclave

It was my first day at work and the office is in the Diplomatic Enclave, so it is barred off from the rest of the world. No one can enter without special permission and when I arrived in the morning the permission had not arrived so I kicked my heels for about half an hour, […]

Reality striking

Reality struck today as I realised that I must go to Islamabad for work tomorrow and then stay there for the next month at least, going into the office almost daily. I had managed to avert my eyes from this unfortunate reality, but there it is. I’m off tomorrow. This morning I made a quick […]

Filthy

A filthy day today. Cold, raining, miserable. A bad day to go into town, for other reasons as well, but I had to go to Liberty and collect a gift I’d bought online. Liberty is always a hellhole, particularly on weekends, when the weather is bad,, and in the runup to Christmas. Today it was […]

Stiff neck

That’s what my mother always told me, and I suppose she was right. I went to a physiotherapist for the first time for what I had long thought was incipient RSI. Turns out it’s not what I think of as RSI, but an exceptionally stiff neck which is sending referred pain down my arms. So […]

End of the road

Yesterday I spent the day working in a cafe near the house and didn’t stray far, getting increasingly worried about finishing (I didn’t manage to finish). Then off to the airport, where I couldn’t work on the plane either as the seats were far too cramped for a laptop. We arrived in the UK at […]

Long walk into town

This morning we repeated the walk, except underground and on the subway, emerging in the pleasant neighbourhood of Roncesvalle where we ensconced ourselves in a cafe with outstanding frittata and worked for a bit. My work has definitely fallen behind and I am worried that I will not be able to complete it before our […]

Working weekend

Finally got a bit of momentum going after a week where I found it quite hard to just get down to work, so spent most of the two days at my computer. It is somewhat frustrating work, as it’s been lingering for six months now and is really quite tricky work, but there it is, […]