Decisions, decisions………

I’ve found myself in a bit of a quandary the past few days, trying to figure out what the best course of action will be for when I get home. My first instinct is cars and always will be, and if I follow that I’ll be tempted to go out and buy a nice one straight away, I did line up a project car for my return but it turned out to be a nail so it’s back to the drawing board with that one. Thing is though I’ve got an outstanding loan that I can pay off too, although that wouldn’t leave a lot of cash free for decent motor, I’d probably have to make do with a runabout for a while. Then of course I’ll be wanting a house when I get back too, so do I use what I’ve saved for a deposit, add my outstanding loan to a mortgage and then embark on a debt free start to home owner-ship? The problem with that is that with the wage I’ll be on at home, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get a mortgage large enough to cover a cardboard box, never mind having enough in reserve to cover the loan too, as house prices seem to be continuing there alarming upward spiral and with no other half to share with at the minute it’s going to be a stretch I reckon….hmmm.

It’s been a few days or so since I last blogged and they’ve been pretty good to be honest other than the aforementioned indecisiveness! I spent the best part of Thursday morning poncing around in a pair of McLaren SLR’s which was obviously a pretty good start to the day, especially when explaining to the customer that his new front brake pads were going to set him back the equivalent of 1100 quid! Being able to afford to buy a Supercar is literally only half of the deal; being able to live with one and run it is a whole different ball game. Some of the parts for the SLR are absolutely pornographic when it comes to the cost and the fact that some of these blokes don’t even ask how much the stuff is when they give the go ahead makes me even bitterer towards them! Case in point; one of our customers who’s based in Saudi shipped his SLR over to England so he could use it on holiday (how excessive is that?!) and as he was in the area thought he’d pop in to McLaren’s HQ to see what they could fettle on his car. He decided on a red suede headliner, a new steering wheel and swapped his silver brake calipers for red ones. That little lot came to just over 36K!!! I think the sales guy would’ve been wearing the steering wheel around his neck if he’d have presented me with that bill, but our customer just handed over his credit card and didn’t bat an eyelid!! It really is another world.

On Thursday evening Graham had his Sister over from Dubai for the night so the three of us went to Bam-Bu for their “all you can eat” special. It’s a lovely Chinese place and the all you can eat special includes all you can drink too, all for about 15 quid which is a pretty decent price considering how nice the food is. Needless to say vast amount of fried animals and Stella were consumed before we headed over to JJ’s for the rest of the night. JJ’s is the local Irish bar and probably one of the “hot-spots” in Bahrain. It’s not a bad place to be fair and there’s usually plenty of Brits in there too. It was a pretty cool night actually, Morgan, Louise, Chris, Derek and Lorraine were all there, and we were even treated to a cameo appearance from Mr. Kirkman towards the end too. There was an interesting development that cropped up in a conversation between me and Lorraine too at one point, something that may have me nipping down to London at some stage when I get back, although I’ll say no more for now unless anything more comes if it. By about 1:30am we are all pretty much twisted so we called it a night and headed back. On our return to the apartment Morgan, Louise and I embarked on what has now become somewhat of a tradition when we’ve been out; ordering our own body weight in pizzas, chicken wings and garlic bread and hardly touching any of it before retiring to our pits!

Friday was a pretty steady day, when I got up I just sat in front of the tv and watched Pearl Harbour followed by the original Planet of the Apes (there was nothing else on!) before I started getting a few bits and bobs organized ready to start packing. That evening Graham and I decided we both fancied nipping to the cinema so we just headed on down there without knowing what was on. We ended up watching Rush Hour 3 which I thought was really good. I like those sort of films; easy watching that doesn’t really take any effort to follow, just endless scenes of explosions, fights and drama One thing that never fails to bemuse me is the Arab mentality when they’re in the cinema; phone-calls, crying kids, chats across the rows the lot. I swear I was about 2 seconds from clouting the bloke behind me, I don’t know what he was eating but it happened to be contained in the world’s noisiest bag!! Trying to enjoy a film with what sounds like a Kalashnikov going off behind your head isn’t easy, but luckily the fat git finished in quick time so it was ok.

Yesterday at work seemed to fly and before I knew it 4:30 was here and I was heading to the pub. I got there just in time to catch the second half of the Toon-v-Mackem game and I thought both teams were pretty poor! I think someone was definitely smiling down on Newcastle when Chopra’s header glanced the underside of the bar and came out! I love a good local derby but it seemed a bit flat. The plan was originally to leave after this but the West Ham game started straight after and the pints kept on coming. What started off as one pint and the end of one match turned in to ten pints and wandering out of the pub at 11:00 after the Liverpool game had finished. Oh well

 For tonight I think the plan is probably more of the same, although I doubt I’ll be drinking as it gets a bit tedious after a while. There are a few decent games on this evening that could really shake up the Premiership table so I’m looking forward to some entertaining football. On the subject of entertaining football, I’ve got to give the super Stags a mention for there comfortable 3-0 win in the cup last night, as well as a big shout for the Boulding brothers….keep it up lads!!!

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