After freaking out about T-Mobile (curse their rotten souls) I’ve realised I have so much damn paperwork to crunch, forms to fill and stuff to file and submit with various everyone that I may as well just jump through their damn hoops because its minimal extra hassle.

The mortgage company is looking for explanations and elaborations and suddenly it turns out that I have to cycle contracts every year to avoid some sort of tenancy rights issues. The insurance company tells me I need to swap over insurance but that should be doable closer to departure. The leasing agent talks about dressing the flat; new quilts and bed spreads; professional cleaning.

Vaccines and medicines - I’m shot full of cholera, typhoid and one of the hepatitis strains at the moment, have to go back for boosters in a month, more in the following month and I’ve got Malarone racked up for the look-see trip. The doctors were pretty fuzzy on the long term effects of taking anti-malarials on a continual basis for 2-3 years - “the company says we have to give them to you, up to you whether you take them” - and I’m having a little trouble digging up a tropical medicines sawbones.

Sorting out my visa is turning into a nuisance - I need an invitation letter from the far side and its … not shown up yet. Meanwhile, I’ve to sort out my permanent work visa and go out there on the 23rd June start taking over from the guy who is there now, see where I’m going to live and figure out what I need to ship.

Shipping… storage… getting rid of the stuff I don’t need. Books, a quick skim of favourites and the rest to the local rag’n'bone shops. Game books are coming with, given a compound full of bored engineers I figure I may be able to run a game or two. Clothes for a hot climate - Port Harcourt currently 26degC, 75 humidity with heavy showers - and I have to figure out how people dress - entirely possible the offices are air-conned so fully I’ll be in danger of catching chill - also realise its possible the windows are left open so its just ‘as is’. Apparently its cloudy there a lot.

I have to finish tearing my tiling apart and redo them. Happily, it seems to be effective, apart from the nauseating fumes off the silicone sealant, its all ok to deal with - just have to seal and leave the place to set.

Writing up the dissertation seems to be working fairly well - two interviews in hand and 29% return rate on questionnaires is entirely adequate for this state of play. I’ve a few thousand words written, lots of research docco in hand and I like to think a pretty good handle on what I’ve got and where I’m going so no great problems there, just have to get it written.

Lastly, weddings and holidays - as I unclipped May and turned over to the June sheet on my calendar before leaving work this evening I saw all the blocked out red and yellow and realised I’m going to be away from my desk a hell of a lot, and all the carbon footprints I’ve not been making in a month spent pretty close to home are about to get utterly stomped on. Still, I’m getting sent business class down to Port Harcourt with Air France for the look see, so that’ll be interesting. Also, hopefully let me hide in the business lounge during the ten hour stop over I’ve got there on the way back.

My lunatic cousin is in Liberia with some NGO doing minesweeping - “what,” asked someone in the department, “has he got too many feet?” -and apparently is interested in coming down to visit me once I’m there. Frankly, one of our mutual cousins is a missionary in Zambia, I’d be more inclined for both of us to head over to him. It would be nice to see some of Africa thats not viscerally hostile - though apparently all thats needed is to get out of Rivers state and the rest of Nigeria is pretty nice. This I have from various locals, once they’ve stopped laughing about my going to PHC.

And finally, I just have to find a couple of million pounds worth of oil in the next six weeks, justify why they’ve been feeding me for the past few years. No problems.

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