Did I take the rubbish out?

The last few days have been rather surreal. One minute your doing your usual weekend hacking a golf ball around Kattameya folowed by shopping at Carrefour and the next thing is your trying to get your head around what to do with the kids education if the “revolution” in Cairo takes a long time. This has played havoc with our thoughts and from what we can see from fellow evacuees on the very active facebook pages we are not the only ones coming to terms with the happenings in the last few days. Our shopping trip a couple of days ago was a diasaster – neither of us could focus. I have spoken to our friends who were involved in the evacuation and eventual catasthrophe that was Hurricane Katrina and they tell me they went through similar feelings, high and low, trivial and significant.

We have found that we feel anxious for the big concerns: What if our house is looted? What about all those sentimental items we left? Will the company pay for replacement costs? Should we enroll the kids into school here? Should we go for an expensive private school or give them a taste of “normal” school? Whats going to happen to us if we can’t go back, will we still have jobs? How can we get money to Ahmed the driver and Mahmoud? What about my Egyptian team mates?

Bizarrely I find I am also disturbed in equal measure with inconsequential things:
Crapola – I just paided my club subscripton – if we never go back that’s money down the drain! That toilet in the basement was never fixed, and the guy should be coming round to fix the washing machine. I hope nobody steals the golf balls I have in the back garden. If theres a powercut we will will we loose all our bacon collection? Did we ever drink that expensive bottle of red Lenonese wine we brought in Beirut? I hope the tortoises have enough food (although Mrs T would put this in the “big things”). Did I take rubbish out before we left? I never did manage to put those new photos up. I filled up the car with fuel and now some scabby looter is going to have a full tank in a car I just serviced.

There are upsides to being an evacuee though! We get extended time with the family (crapola, we need not have come home for Xmas, we are seeing everyone now! – see what I mean). We get to see more football matches, see some decent films at the movies, eats some good indian food, see old friends. Also long lost friends contact you again to see if you are still alive! If we have not thanked you individually, many thanks for all the best wishes and via facebook and email, it mean’t a lot to us.

As the old saying goes, today is the first day of the rest of my life, and more significantly the first day of trying to work from home and I have already run into IT problems, and the helpdesk is not up yet (and I don't mean Mrs T)!!!! Lets see how this goes....