As for the weekend, I slept and worked on David's present.... only a little shopping, at Monoprix to buy some socks, stockings and an extra set of skin-care products for my three months away. I'll have to buy another full set as well before I leave, I use a French brand for very sensitive skin, it comes from the parapharmacie and I am sure that it is either unobtainable in Nicosia or very expensive. I did find out last time that Avene sun block costs about £20 there! Even toothpaste is expensive, about £6 for Elgydium, as opposed to 18€ for six tubes here. And don't even get me started on John Frieda Blondes hair stuff, it is totally unobtainable in Nicosia.

Of course I have plenty of time to plan - rather surreptitiously - what I need to take with me, as of course we still have database problems. Kent solved quite a lot last week, but when we started testing again, I found more, and it seems they are due to mismatching versions of things.

I am also fighting the battle of the cellphone, you will recall I said that all of ours just stopped a few weeks ago, because our new bosses didn't pay the bill! Well, after it became apparent that we were not going to get a replacement contract in a hurry, I ordered a new SIM card, and that was three weeks ago. No SIM card has turned up, and I can't even contact anyone to find out what has happened to it. The buyer, who is in India, gives me autoreplies saying to contact a help desk, who do not answer either phone calls or emails. I have a stack of autoreplies from them as well. I really don't know what will happen, and I'm starting to wonder if it is a plot to get us all to buy our own phones. Actually some people do have personal ones, but won't give the number to the company. I'm not sure if I would go that far.... but it is getting very inconvenient, I don't want to travel without a phone.

I've actually just tried to cancel the order, my boss told me to do that and place a new one marked URGENT, but I can't even do that.... so I've sent him a mail asking if he can cancel it. It's all very frustrating, although at least I have time to do this sort of thing at present.

I am also browned off because I haven't heard anything more about Cyprus yet, although I have asked everyone what is going on. And the last thing I am cross about is the transport strike planned for next Thursday, when it is the first Susan O'Connor class - it means I may not even be able to get there, although if I am feeling well, I will try to walk the four kilometers. It will apparently be a complete strike, although that is very rare here - normally something is running, and I would love it to be the 92 bus. If it does go ahead, that means I wouldn't have been able to come to work anyway - it is at least 20 kilometers, and the uncertainty of getting back would make things very risky - so it wasn't really much use Sylvain yelling at me for taking that day off, because probably everyone will!

I guess that is enough for the daily moan....