First day of the school holidays and the children and I had to be at school by 6.45am. Why? They have not yet got their dependents passes and so it was off the Immigration Office, 25 miles from school to see about getting it done. The early start was all due to trying to be first in the queue and thereby avoid hours of waiting.
Arriving with my colleague from HR and Lexi at around 8.00am we took our ticket, number 3003, and started waiting. My HR colleague assured me that applying for the passes was routine, but could take time. It did. We left at 9.45am. Although curiously without the dependency passes. Apparently this first session was to apply for the passes and then we have to wait for the approval and then passports can be stamped. All rather confusing really. At the Immigration Office there were two different waiting number sets. Us 3000ers seemed to be few and far between and were dealt with, geologically speaking, swiftly. It was the 4000ers that I felt more concerned for. On our arrival number 4002 was being dealt with by “Kaunter Number 4, please.” By the time we left officials has raced on to 4018 while other waiters were well into the 4030s. That may not seem to be that remarkable but the security desk that was responsible for handing out the numbers seemed to have stopped giving out tickets and those sitting in the seats facing the austere counters did appear to be settled for the day.
After this fun-packed start to the day it was home via the EPF Office, the Malaysian Government (sort of) Pension Office. As part of my contract I have agreed to invest 11% of my salary in EPF and my school will put in 12%. The whole lot is then invested and I get my hands on the loot at the end of my contract, after tax. As with everything here there is a form for it and my HR colleague had already completed the necessary paperwork for me. I had to sign it, present my two thumb prints in ink form and scanned in form and then it was all legitimate, so I think….
After lunch things did get a little bit more exciting. The weather was hot so I decided that it was a good opportunity to take the children for a dip while Lexi was having a siesta. Their kits, along with mine, were drying outside so went out to get them. The only tiny flaw in this plan was that the patio door was closed. Having, as it does, a darkening covering on it to help keep the house cool, it is often tricky to tell whether the doors are open or closed, well that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it. My head hit the glass first, with accompanying thud, flowed closely by my swinging right hand which made different sound, not unlike that of breaking glass. I had, accidently, broken the patio door. It soon also became clear that although the door was not for this house much longer my right hand was not in the best of conditions too. I can cope quite well with blood but always prefer to have it inside my body. The number of cuts to my hand meant that the sleeping Lexi had to be woken and drive me to the doctors. Lexi is less good with blood and so kept her eyes firmly fixed on the road. The doctors of “Global Doctors” were very good and their cleaning up of wounds, x-raying, stitching and bandaging is to be admired.
Len Goodman, of Strictly Come Dancing fame would be proud of my number of stiches, SE-VERN! As long as all goes to plan my Christmas Day present this year should be: a trip to Global Doctors to have my stitches taken out.