Ear ache. Not more loud Egyptian musicians, or norovirus handwashing nagging, but actual bona fide physical earache. I think I have a mosquito bite in my left ear. It’s agony. I’ve been given antibiotic drops and am knocking back the ibuprofen, but although the pain subsides, that just means I get to sleep all day as the pain keeps me awake at night. Every time I turn over onto my left side, the pain wakes me up. In the past two days all I have done is eat and go to Spanish class. The rest was all sleep. I did manage to kill her last night, so hopefully, I’ll have no fresh bites tomorrow. She ate well before she died, though. I have bites on my toes, calves, thighs, fingers, shoulders and arms. All on my right side, now I come to think about it, so how she got to my left ear, I have no idea.

As regards the sleep, though, it doesn’t help that the clocks keep going forward, so the nights get shorter and shorter! Twice in two nights isn’t fair, frankly. Seems a bit harsh to me. My body clock doesn’t know which way is up.

We’ve finally got a decent internet satellite signal (and BBC World is back, although CNN remains elusive), so I’ve been catching up with some of my friends’ news from home and several seem to be having a particularly rubbish time at the moment. I feel bad that I can’t log on more often or be of more help. All I can do is send virtual hugs, which feels a bit lacking, when they’re facing job loss, health problems, bereavement and mistreatment at work.

No pirates, so far…

Weather forecast for Salalah tomorrow: 24 – 26 degrees (depending on which tv station you watch!). My sun cream seems to have curdled somewhat. It now has the consistency of cottage cheese! Still seems to work, though, oddly enough…

As regards the sleeping and the ear thing,  it doesn’t hurt as much as it did yesterday, but it’s still quite swollen and sore. Hopefully another day or so should finally knock it on the head and I can get a decent night’s sleep and get my days back! Mind you, as we are currently in the Gulf of Aden (pirate waters, arrrr), we’re not allowed out on the Prom deck (Deck 7), so I couldn’t walk my mile, even if I did have the energy. Which I don’t, so it’s all moot, frankly.  Am astonished how draining earache is.

Salalah

It may have been 26 degrees but it absolutely fell down with rain. Marvellous.  Didn’t go ashore at all.