Foreign trips for John

John is certainly earning his salary at present. Last week he had a team of assessors in looking at their Master's courses. Remembering the old days with Daddy and the CNAA visitations I think I was even more bothered about it than John - though he doesn't tend to make as much fuss about things as I do! I think it all went well though John managed to miss the final feedback meeting because no-one had told him the time had changed - only in Abu Dhabi!
This week he went off to Korea for with colleagues from the Institute and Masdar Corporate for a conference and visits to several Korean Universities. This also seems to have gone very well though long days and lots of meetings. He nearly didn't get there as there were pretty severe storms on the night he was going up to Dubai to catch his flight. However, it was the fact that the travel agent had got his phone number wrong that actually meant he came close to missing his plane. The Emirates chauffeur couldn't reach him and went away. I thought I might have to do a midnight dash to Dubai but we managed to reach the chauffeur and get him back. The lack of attention to detail here drives me mad and I really need to be more relaxed about it.
He comes back for one day on Saturday and then Sunday is back on a plane to go to a meeting in Dresden with one of the partner organizations who they have a joint venture course with. Not ideal in terms of time zones, too much travel and getting any work done back in the office but then no-one every said that life was supposed to be easy!
I have been well looked after whilst he's been away. I went out of a drink with my friend Liz on Wednesday and we had a lovely evening and a good long chat and put the world to rights. She's an expat and Abu Dhabi old hand so she's always full of great advice as well as being great company and enormous fun. Last night I had two invitation and went next door for a lovely dinner with Helen and John. One of their other guests works for one of our subsidiary companies - the secret one that I've never been allowed to talk to so that was really interesting - and we had a lovely evening. Nidal also called to ask me if I'd like to go out with her and her friends and she has extended an invite for tonight as well. This is so lovely of her, especially as she's about 20 years younger than me so dragging an old fogey along on a night out might be a bit daunting for the young, beautiful crowd that she must hang out with.
I still find it very difficult being on my own in Abu Dhabi, which is daft with so much to do and so many kind friends offering to entertain me. Naturally I miss John but just how much I hate being on my own is unreasonable. Hopefully I'll get better at it over time. Especially if work continues to crank up and keep me engaged. Still I shall be very relieved when John comes back from Dresden. It's only a week then till our trip back to the UK for John's birthday which we are both very much looking forward to - especially now my boss has finally signed my holiday form!