Returning to England

It being over four weeks now since my departure from India it already seems a lifetime ago. I spent almost two weeks back in Pattaya on vacation before returning to the UK on the morning of 14 July.

Apparently the UK had been having some hot weather – certainly the grass looked brown – but it rained the day I got back.

The first issue on returning to Reading was to buy a car. This was already more or less done as having been in correspondence with my usual garage by e-mail I already had a second hand car lined up – so it was simply a matter of insuring it and driving off.

Then there’s the issue of food – knowing one isn’t going to be in Reading long makes it tricky to judge quantities as one normally buys vegetables, pasta, rice and other such stuff with the long term in view.

After that came setting up a mobile broadband account – do I sign up for 18 months or take it on a month by month basis. Month by month is slightly more expensive – but given that I’m rarely in the same place or country for long enough 18 months would probably exceed my needs.

On the Friday I departed Reading again to head to my new work location in Teesside via my sister’s and my mother’s.

As mentioned in previous post I worked in our company’s Teesside offices for four months in 2002 – so going back there wasn’t that hard although some of the road layouts have changed. The problem of getting round York when driving from Selby however hasn’t.

I get two weeks in a hotel and then have to find my own place. This I’ve hopefully done with a small two bedroom “cottage” in Yarm, not far from the centre of town.

Yarm has a very wide high street surrounded by shops and pubs – so it looks like it could be a reasonable place to live for the next six months.

And as the place I’m renting doesn’t appear to have a TV it could be a good chance to catch up on my reading – not like I will be missing anything on TV though better get my radio so as to listen to the Test Matches.

Leaving India

One benefit of knowing that I was departing India a month before I actually did so was that it enabled me to hand over my workload in a more organised manner than the usual last minute rush. For my last week I more or less acted as a spectator – fielding the odd query and reminding suppliers who obviously never read previous instructions that they should address messages to my successor.

Meanwhile on the home front my next assignment will be to our company’s offices in Teesside – not as exotic as some of the places I’ve been but much closer to my “home” in Yorkshire. I did four months there in 2002 – so it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with the territory and seem to recall that you could get some decent fish & chips along with a beer in the pubs of Yarm.

One of the other blokes being de-mobbed from Chennai has accepted an assignment in South Africa – which meant that rather than leave at the end of August as originally planned he de-mobbed much quicker and left on 27 June. We celebrated in a place called The Bike & Barrel – an attempt at imitating an English pub. The decor works but the volume of music and the bouncers on the doors reluctance to let in other than “couples” indicates that they haven’t quite got the idea.

Tuesday 29th saw me saying goodbye to the folk I’ve worked with in India and eating possibly my last chapattis for some time as I had my last veggie meal before heading for the airport at 8.00pm.

Thankfully the plane to Bangkok wasn’t full and Thai Airways allowed my case – weighing in at 32 kg – on board without extra charges.

So now it’s a two week vacation in Thailand before a brief visit to Reading to dump some stuff and pick up other stuff – then off to Teesside and whatever awaits me there.