11th November 2006

The 11th marked the start of Restaurant week in Kingston, where all the local restaurants drop their prices to show off their wares in a gala week. Reluctantly I agreed to attend Café Aubergine at a table for 6. Back down to the shopping all food court which would only be twice as bad, as the prices are all halved (food only – wine is still extortionate).

I had the most sorry excuse for a restaurant meal, I have ever had in my life. The first bottle of wine was oxidized, slightly but I didn’t fancy the fight with the waiter so just decided to order sometime else for the second bottle. At the equivalent of £50 a bottle I would have sent it back had I been in any other country in the world, but instead decided to go for a cheap alternative, so that all the dodgy preservative they put in it will keep the taste a little fruity even if it is cheap American over extracted piss. I deal with the hang-over in the morning. The restaurant are quite obviously storing the wine in the kitchens.

Starter for me was meant to be French Onion Soup, but what came back was a slice of cheese on toast floating in a beef and tomato cuppa soup. (Lady of Leisure did say that she had a quite acceptable mushroom tortellini in comsomme.)

Main course things just got comical. 5 of the 6 of us ordered Fillet Mingnon. LoL asked for rare as usual, and had to send back the first burnt offering she received. By the time she received her second, the remaining 4 of us had finished with the beef. Not that we had finished the beef, I physically couldn’t chew the first bite and after a solid 5 minutes chewing spat it out. Even Big Man, who isn’t known to be fussy about which part of a cow he’s eating couldn’t finish it.

I complained to the owner and told him flatly I was prepared to pay for my wine, but there was no way I was paying for the food. They had the nerve to keep the starters on the bill. I felt like starting a ruckus until the Big Man pointed out that they had miscounted the number of bottles of wine and it all evened out.

Still the whole experience was galling and typified they way the customer is treated in Jamaica. Thrown in front of you and be happy you’re getting something, even if it not what you ordered, and absolutely no concern for you enjoyment. This was meant to be a showcase for a relatively new restaurant and they failed miserably. They lost 6 customers for definite that night and I will do my utmost to ensure it will be many more.

10th November 2006

A long week at work always ends abruptly on a Friday. Straight to ‘Pon Da Roof” for a few scoops if the sun is still out or better still pop round to Indies. Indies is the perfect blokes bar. There are about 30 television screens dedicated half and half to various sports channels or rap videos. Throw a few pretty bar maids into the mix and Red Stripe at $100 and what a way to wind down!

Being an old married man, I normally head off relatively early, but I am reliably informed that said pretty barmaids will at some point in the evening, change into rather more scanty gear and beginning to wine on the bar. Tales of “Lingerie Nights” are legend, though personally I think are more myth as there has not been one in the 9 months I’ve been here!

9th November 2006

Work has been creeping up a little recently. I fully expected to be putting in the long hours following my return. It was meant to be a case of working hard but being seen to be working hard. There is a perception here that long work is hard work and I swore I would not subscribe to that. But life is too short (actually contracts are too short) to try to change the world so I’ll play the game. Thing is though work is a bit like a gas. It seems to fill whatever space you give it and still presses on the sides. The twelve hours days can easily become thirteen and fourteen if you let them. There have weeks where I haven’t seen the kids for a couple of days in a row.

My boss has certainly been well rewarded for playing the game over the last few years is beginning to view me with suspicion. He would normally wait until everyone else leaves, send off a few mails just to prove how hard he’s been working and then go. I can see him glancing up to see if I’m still at my desk when he is now looking to leave and there have been quite a number of occasions when I have faced him down. Its become quite the contest. I’m not keeping score, but I’ll bet any money he is!

7th November 2006

It had to happen sooner or later. Lady of Leisure has had enough of the house and the cockroaches were the final straw. We’ve only seen two alive since we came back, but that’s worse apparently. She has never been enthusiastic about the house (I rented it before she got here) and with all the flitting about to the other houses of the ladies who lunch, her low opinion of only got lower. True my selection criteria may not have been optimal for a family (Big TV and a Bar), but I didn’t have to spend that much time there!

In fairness, the house was beginning to feel small for a family of four and is dark and old fashioned and compares very shabbily to other bright shining palaces around. With me spending longer in the office, house was starting to get seriously claustrophobic. So she has been tasked with finding and selecting the next house herself, that way I can remain completely blameless. I’ll miss the TV though.

2nd November 2006

Lady of Leisure’s social life seems to have picked up another gear following her return. She seems to get invited to every social gathering going, bake off with the Canadian Women’s Club, countless coffee mornings, school fetes, the list is endless. The expatriate community is small here and particularly so when it gets to the young mums. The social circles for the boys can be intense as you socialize with work colleagues. Generally everyone is so happy just to be out of work, that there are few formalities to stand on, though conversation may get a little stilted with work being the only common thread.

The social circle of the ladies who lunch is infinitely more complex. There appears be a hierarchy based on relative positions of husbands in their respective companies and little elite cliques with seemingly arbitrary selection criteria. This can apparently lead to “impossible” situations when a member of more than one of these covens, and listening to the Lady of Leisure dredge excuses for non attendance at one gathering in favour of another gives great levity at her discomfiture.
I’m think of contacting HR to put a health warning of future expatriate contracts; “Your wifes mental health may be at risk if you accept this contract; she may regress to her early teenage years.”

26th October 2006

Little Madam and myself returned ahead of the rest of the family, our trip truncated by school and work commitments. Just as before we left, the Lady of Leisure had organized her cohort of ladies who lunch into a massive logistics support function; school drop off, pick ups, evening meals etc.

Of course the best laid plans wend wildly awry as before. LM and myself muddled through, though I did find myself imposing on New Best Friends slightly more than would have been polite.

The kindness of relative strangers here is enough to restore a man’s faith in humanity. Yes they are not strangers to LoL, but I have never met half of the people she considers her friends. The expatriate community is small, and with the high churn, you find dispensing with much of the social etiquette we use at home to keep distance between you and the people you meet. Friends are formed immediately, no point waiting months if one of you will only be around for a year. One tends to be a little less choosy about friends as well, and even the slightest of shared interest can find you as bosom buddies with a motley crew of individuals.

Now I know I can blame work for distracting me a bit more than previously, but I didn’t think I was doing such a bad job. Something must have got lost in translation however, in updating LoL over the phone. My parenting skills were brought into question and suddenly I went from being the Best Dad on the planet in early October to apparently abandoning my daughter to the fates. I was told in very concise terms that I could not be trusted to look after the kids on my own again and that LoL would never stagger our flights home again. I suspect that there might have been a little tension with the in-laws after I left and I was bearing the brunt of frustration being unvented elsewhere.To make matters worse we seem to have picked up a bit of cockroach problem while we were away. Not too bad but I picked up 4 or 5 carcasses when I got back. Cockroaches here are monsters, the size of matchbox cars – and just as tough. LoL will have a fit when she returns

23rd October 2006

Back from my trip home and surprising I’m not down at all. I had been expecting my homesickness to redouble after seeing the old sod and the home. The one with big windows, clean lines and a light modern feel…. Not the case at all, in fact if anything I have come back with greater resolve to get the job done. Even considering the possibility of extending the contract, which would have been completely unthinkable a few short weeks ago.

Its amazing how little things change in an environment so familiar. Friends look the same, the house looked a bit tired and dusty but I completely lost the sense that I had been away for 8 months. It bodes well for when we return permanently that the experience abroad will not have changed us to the point where we feel outsiders. That is possibly one of the factors which allowed me to return to Jamaica with added vim.

10 days off work meant 8 days at home after traveling. This was not nearly long enough as thankfully friends and family all made a real effort to see us, though was all I could squeeze out of the company. There were many nights out and I’m sorry to say we didn’t get to see everyone, some of whom had made huge efforts to see us. Next return visit will be planned a little better to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and to allow for a little down time for the constant partying and jet lag!

12th October 2006

The Lady of Leisure and the Wee Lad have flown home. School and work commitments have meant that Little Madam and myself will not be joining them for another day or two. In a desperate attempt to convince me there is something of substance and consequence to her day, I have been left a detailed list to enable me to take care of my daughter. Times for the school, drop off and collection points, times of art classes, meals to cook, how many times an hour to breathe etc. She then circulated said list amongst all the ladies who lunch, to make sure that when unreliable husband inevitably messes up some one will be on hand to rescue Little Madam.

Of course the plans did not take account of the unpredictability of a pre-teen social calendar, so the unreliable husband spent began every working day by cancelling the various pick-ups previously organized. Actually this have gone pretty smoothly all week, and granted, taking lunch at 3pm to bring my daughter back to my office is not sustainable in the long term but we coped and neither family life nor work suffered noticeably.
Of course I played the hardship card over the phone to the Lady of Leisure, particularly when it came to unannounced fancy dress parties at school that I suddenly had to prepare for. None of it was that bad and though I was too last too cook, LM and I went out for a few decent bites to eat in East and Red Bones and we had a great bonding time. To get brownie points on top of all that was bonus indeed.

The washing machine didn’t turn out to be quite the saga I expected. In fact the whole thing got sorted quite quickly and finished up a little under 2 weeks. Greased lightning round these parts.