Personal

--- By 7.20am, I am in a cab, speeding towards the Yaba Motor Park. The plan is to grab a seat on an early bus to Benin, and then on to Ekpoma. Overnight my Mum has tried to call me several times. My gamble - forwarding my UK mobile to a Skype Out number- has failed spectacularly; no thanks to the dodgy internet I’ve got. The forwarded calls come in but I can’t answer them with any decent quality. :( That early on a Sunday morning, Lagos is already agog – blaring loud speakers, shrill cries of hawkers and bus conductors alike and a steady stream of pedestrians. ...

--- I wake up to singing - slightly muffled but loud enough to filter through to that neither here nor there place between sleep and waking up, where ambient sounds meld into dreams, or whatever it is conscious people do with their brains. When I make my way downstairs, it turns out it is the hotel staff having morning prayers. I am low on cash, I half start to prepare to go out before I am minded to ask my friend V, who confirms an ATM is my best bet. I end up walking a few kilometres to the nearest bank, a Zenith Bank, and empty my cash passport in the process; 20,000 naira should cover an extra day’s hotel costs and the transport fare by road from Lagos to Benin which is next on the agenda. ...

--- Source Nightfall….It is very nearly half past seven when we begin our final descent into Lagos. From the window, all that is visible is a thick, dense darkness, interrupted by clusters of lights here and there. I’m surprised it’s not totally dark out there, my seat mate ventures. I shrug. Maybe generators I say. He seems unconvinced. Over the course of the last 6 hours, and some, he and I have conversed intermittently – first about the busyness that engulfs travel hubs like Schiphol and Heathrow, and La Guardia where the first leg of his flight originated. Then a moan about the delays in the cabin crew delivering head phones to use – from which it transpires that on his La Guardia – Schiphol leg he had to ask for them before he got them. The antics of our dear Bini granny also provide fodder for our intermittent, light hearted chatting. Descending into Lagos changes the bent of our conversation into something decidedly more Nigeria focused – mainly how in a few short minutes our motley of people who queued almost impeccably at Schiphol would disintegrate into a seething, boiling mass of one-uppers and corner cutters. ...

Sinking… and feeling for rock bottom is the sense of where I feel I am at the moment; very much like the proverbial lead sinking in water. The thing with Tee rather than being the primary cause of this latest bout of malaise helped precipitate it, not least being the most recent of a string of setbacks in the girl department running through the year. There’s work, and the fact that the guys I currently work for recently lost a major service contract they had held for the better part of 8+ years. With that has come the potential for staff moves, down-sizing and all the other fun and games associated with trying to bring overhead down. Even though my own role seems safe amidst this sea of change, there is the additional complication of the particular client I support shuttering activity on the plant I work for. My UK visa is tied to my employer so the uncertainty associated with work, or not working does leave the mind in jitters. Another layer of complexity is the fact that I want to do something different. Having spent the greater part of the last 10 years - since December 2003 - in topside pressure system asset integrity, I do want to get my teeth into subsea materials and corrosion a lot more than my current role might allow… ...

It is very nearly a month since I gave the #52SmallChanges project any kind of intentionality. I could blame a mini season of depression occasioned by my fixation on S, or the fact that I have upcoming exams I am freaking out about, or work - which I have had loads of. Bottom line is I haven’t been on the money with regards to the small changes I was meant to be progressing through till the next birthday. The barely there silver lining though is besides the ‘get more sleep’ change, I’ve pretty much kept up with the new habits I have picked up in the first three weeks. ...

Against my better judgement – and that not for the first time – I call S on Sunday evening. Predictably she doesn’t answer her phone. The first and only acknowledgement of the missed call comes on Tuesday night, a full fifty-two hours later, when she texts to apologise for missing my call, citing being tied up with chores and ironing. Given she is someone I have been trying to get a face to face with since early July; and who pulled out of yet another agreement in principle to meet up the Thursday before the Sunday on which I call her citing busyness again; it does begin to strain the limits of credulity to imagine these are just random, real limitations on time as opposed to a fully intentional strategy to avoid meeting up. ...

Tee and I have somehow segued into friend zone territory - catching up once a day on average to share the minutiae of life, moan about our respective bosses and all the other things working adults who live alone find the time to complain about. She has had a lot on her plate lately between work, illness and family visits, as I have been with work and my urgent trip down south to Sheffield to sort out the small matter of a visa. ...

From the 52 Small Changes book: An active mind cannot exist in an inactive body - General George S. Patton Last week’s change didn’t exactly go down very well - my fitbit sleep data suggests I didn’t do as well as I thought I would (averaged 6 hours 7 minutes of sleep as against 5 hours 52 minutes the week before); still shy of the 7 hour target. On a slightly more positive note, my water drinking challenge continues apace, thanks to my 600ml mug perched right next to my bed it seems. ...

Battery of tests done and dusted - ECGs, Ultrasound, a plethora of bloods, and numerous appointments with my GP and one up at ARI with the consultant Cardiologist. The news is there’s nothing majorly wrong with yours truly’s heart - bar some borderline LVH, attributable to the elevated blood pressures I have been carrying for a while. From now on it will be a steady daily diet of blood pressure meds - calcium channel blockers in the first place and then an ACE inhibitor to try to reverse the LVH… ...

From the 52 Small Changes book: Sleep is the best meditation - Dalai Lama Last week’s small change went fairly well - bar the odd day on which one coffee just didn’t sort me out. By the end of the week, I was reaching instinctively for my 600ml bottle of water to kick start my day, before anything else. The slightly harder challenge was staying off the cokes, which I did for the most part except for two days - along with a green leaf salad for Wednesday for lunch and on Friday afternoon during my monthly catch up with O. at Nandos. All told there has been noticeable improvement in the quantity of water (and green tea) I drink, which can’t be such a bad thing. ...