More on Body Flying

Here are a couple more photos and videos from my "body flying" as it's called.. Lara was all set to have a go!

Nice to see I chose shoes that matched my suit...

My second attempt - Lara was losing interest by now!



This is my instructor showing how it should be done...

Happy Birthday to Me (again)

(16/11 - updated the photo with a better version...)

Here I am enjoying my birthday present from Olga, she got me a voucher for an adventure, and I chose the indoor skydiving at Airkix in Milton Keynes. I might put some video up once I've watched the DVD of my "flights", as the staff called them. I had two, one-minute sessions in the wind tunnel. The first one was more about worrying about my technique, and wondering why wind blowing at 100mph smells of chlorine, but the second one was more about smiling for the camera and looking out for Lara and Olga, in the viewing area outside the wind tunnel. Having said that, this smiley photo was taken during the first flight, and you can see Lara in the background. She was a little surprised when I floated right past her, at eye-level, soon after this photo was taken. I wish I could have taken a photo of her expression!
After a pub lunch to celebrate my safe landings, we went to Ikea. About the only thing on the shopping list was a bean bag for Lara's nursery, but in true Ikea fashion we came home with a dog bed for Jackson, a 4-foot long crocodile soft toy for Lara and a new dining table for ourselves. But no bean bag.
It wasn't all about me this weekend, yesterday Olga went for a check-up at the opticians and came out with an appointment for Wednesday morning to have laser surgery to correct her eyesight. Watch this space... Olga will be able to read this without her glasses from Thursday!

A Walk in the Park

My flights were all on time yesterday, so I landed back at Heathrow at 7am. There was blue sky, no clouds, a lovely fresh autumn morning, and on the walk from the plane to immigration, there was a big poster showing central London from the Thames, and I thought it would be a lovely day to go into London for a walk in the park, and maybe a hot chocolate down by the river. Olga and I think this everytime we go and work in London, that it's so close yet we hardly ever go with as a threesome (or even more if we ever took the boys!). So, in a bid to avert jetlag-induced, all-day dozing, I was home by 8am and we were heading into London on the train at 10.35. We went straight to Regents Park, and had a picnic lunch then let Lara go for a walk and a ride on her trycycle. After an hour or so she was very tired, and was almost relieved to be put in her pram for a nap. We headed towards the river, but only got as far as Oxford Street before she woke up (after an hour's nap, we do like walking London's streets), and we popped into Debenhams to use their baby-changing facilities, and ended up leaving with a bag full of clothes for Lara from their sale. We wanted to be home before it got dark, so we used the new diagonal crossing at Oxford Circus - very handy to have a pram to help cut a swathe through the human traffic in the middle - and took the tube to Marylebone and then the train home. We were home soon after 4.30pm, and it's a day out we'll definitely do again. A treat of fish & chips for tea just rounded off a very nice day, and I managed to stay awake until 10pm, making it a maximum of two hours sleep in 45 hours.



Today's weather of grey and damp made us realise what a good decision we'd made yesterday, and it was just a day of house-cleaning and then vegging-out. We even got Lara off to sleep for her afternoon nap in her cot rather than in her pram, which made a nice change, not least for Lara I imagine. Olga took all three out for a walk after their naps, but before it got dark, so as the boys could be walked before the fireworks started. They don't seem to bother Jackson much, but Mishka does get a bit upset, his tail disappers between his legs when he's out walking, and when he's at home he wants to come and curl up with us on the sofa.
Ahhh, back to work tomorrow. Mondays, eh?

Light at the end of this tunnel

Well, I survived a difficult week, and the silver lining has been to get upgraded on my flight from Dhaka to Dubai on Emirates. I had a little chat with the check-in guy about cricket, and I am dressed smartly casual, and hey presto! Cricket also saved me from having to bribe the security guys on the way into the airport. At first I said I was a businessman when they x-rayed my bags, and this got them interested in the contents of my bags. As they persisted in trying to find out if I was a businessman (their English wasn't great), I decided to tell them I was here for the cricket between Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, and straight away they understood the word "cricket" and let me straight through. As it happens, some of the Zimbabwe squad are flying home from the tour today on my flight, and are sat across the room from me here in the lounge. I'm afraid I don't recognise them, and from their slightly portly shape, they may be part of the back-room staff!
The work was difficult, with some quite officious bureaucrats trying to catch me out about the equipment we've provided, but I was able to mostly rebuff them. We did have one problem caused by rats or mice nibbling the cables on an $18000 scanner whilst it's spent over a year in different warehouses! $20 to a local electrician got that fixed though...
The normal staff - not the top brass - were very polite and helpful, as was everyone in the hotel, and the climate was lovely, warm without being too hot. It's a very poor place, but I wasn't hassled on the street at all by beggars.
Skype has been great, although I've had to wait up until after 1am to speak with Olga and Lara, but it was worth it.
OK, time to stop laptopping, I seem to have been in front of this thing a lot this week. Time to get my things together and look forward to a glass of bubbly on the plane! It doesn't happen often, after all.

En Route to Bangladesh

Well, I'm established in my hotel room in Dhaka, it was a long old day of travelling. Nearly 7 hours from London to Dubai on Saturday evening, then throw in a four-hour time difference, meant I had a Burger King for breakfast at Dubai airport at "8am" which was 4am as far as my stomach was concerned. I did take this photograph there, if you look above the cockpit of the aeroplane, you'll just about make out the Burj Dubai in the distance, what will be the tallest building in the world when it's completed (very soon!).
The London to Dubai flight was very nice, probably the best flight in economy I've had, with a large seat-back TV, showing films on demand and allowing you to create your own playlist of music from hundreds of CDs; I spent 45 minutes making my list of 47 tracks, which meant that between listening to those songs and watching Tony Scott's version of "The Taking of Pelham 123" ("it's not a remake!" - his words), I didn't get any sleep. Then it was a 4 hour flight from Dubai to Dhaka, over the Persian Gulf (flat and wet), central India (flat and green) and into Bangladesh (flat and green/wet). This was on an older plane, and it was full, mostly of Bangladeshis, but with a fair smattering of Western NGO people. The only excitement on this flight (0ther than asking for a Budweiser at 9.30am (local time, 5.30am tummy time)) was that the Bangladeshi man I was sat next to was hauled out of his seat for a rather stern dressing-down by the chief steward for smoking in the toilet.
Immigration at Dhaka was quick and civilised, helped by the fact I'm here to work for the national Oil company, once I dropped that name, I was expedited through the beaurocracy, but this didn't help with the 30 minute wait for my hold luggage. It was rush-hour when I left the airport (now 5.30pm local time, 10.30am tummy time) which meant the journey from the airport to the hotel took an hour and 15 minutes rather than the 15 minutes it would otherwise take.
I have just missed all the international cricketers who were staying at the Sonargaon. My boss, who is here already, saw the England U-19 team last night and this morning, and the Bangladeshi and Zimbabwe One Day teams, both of whom were staying here until this morning, when they moved down to Chittagong for their next two matches.
We managed to have a beer in the disco between 11pm and midnight local time (4pm - 5pm tummy time) but now it's time to retire for the night. I got up on Saturday morning at 9am, so I've not slept for 33 hours, and jetlag means that I'm less tired now than I was 5 hours ago when I got to the hotel, for some reason.
The internet connection here is perfectly OK, and I had a nice Skype conversation with Lara & Olga earlier, complete with Lara kissing the laptop screen at home. I think the 7 hour time difference might make more Skype calls awkward, but we'll see tomorrow how it goes.
Yaaaaawnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, OK, I'm tired again now, night night.