Day 8 - Dunkirk

Today has been overshadowed by the fact I think I have broken my little finger, but more of that later. 

Wednesday has been another day with snow on the ground and more of the damn stuff so I pulled a bit of a blinder.  I contacted my colleague who is staying in the hotel and suggested we car share to save costs.  He fell for it and suggested we go in his car as he doesn’t trust my driving as I deliberately try to look nervous when I have passengers.  Although I don’t pretend when I am on my own, I am nervous.  But who can blame me when cars seem to be coming from all angles and I am not sure who the hell has right of way.

However this morning I was surprised when I saw the television news, is it only me that saw the coverage of the new pope vote on the news this morning and the black smoke coming from the Vatican chimney and thinking, there seems a lot of smoke, do they have a chimney fire, but as there is not a lot I can do over here so I turned off the news and went to work.

Work was going as per normal when I needed to go upstairs to visit a customer, on the down I was holding onto the hand rails but failed to notice a great big iron bar that stretches from the underneath of the hand rail to the floor.  I smashed my hand into the rail and really hurt my little finger, is has nicely swollen to about double its size.  But my main problem is that over here on the continent, every time someone seems to come in or go out of a room they insist on shaking your hand and everyone seems to have a grip like a vice and I am left in more pain.  Then when I was sat in my chair four guys walked into the room to introduce themselves.  I was nearly on the floor crying by the time they left.

Then tonight after work the guy I am taking over from and an engineer and two of the other project managers  and myself went out to a restaurant for an evening meal, and of course we all arrived separately and a huge bout of handshaking took place.  We had a nice meal and chatted for a while which was very pleasant indeed and then finally when it was time to leave it was “let’s put Malcolm in as much pain as possible” time and they all seem to insist on another handshake.  Needless to say my little finger is now almost blue as well as not bending very well.  Amazing how one little thing can cause so much trouble.

Still no internet access at the hotel so I will have to upload this again tomorrow when i am back at work and worse still no chance to catch the cricket score as England are back in action tonight in New Zealand.  Oh well at least it won’t stop me going to sleep and I can have a good night sleep before another day of bone jarring handshakes.

Night all.