24 Hours

24 hours was all it took to receive a call from the recruitment agency about my CV.  They had already sent it to the employer in Riyadh and the employer had asked to interview me by phone the following day.......I felt sick to the pit of my stomach.  I had almost talked myself out of the prospect of anyone even reading my email and now 24 hours later I was going to have an interview, I was either what they were looking for our there were no other applicants.  I decided to think of the former rather than the latter but it did cross my mind that it may be because it was a job in a very strict Muslim country that applicants for the post were few and far between.
Hanan, the Spa Director called me at 11am as arranged and asked me question after question......I'm not sure I like the sound of this women, her tone is very aggressive and see seems to want to know how much work I can do in a day before I fall to the ground physically exhausted!!!!.....Now how do I feel about the job? Let's not think about it, she won't offer it me anyway!
Anyway without going into anymore detail I was called a few days later and offered the job, an offer letter was emailed to me and I was given a 14 day acceptance period.
I pondered over that letter day in day out, could I leave my family, Steven, home, Costa Coffee, the life I had known for 45 years?  The answer was NO, I didn't think I was ready.
I called Hanan and thanked her for the offer but said I didn't feel the time was right and maybe if Steven could secure a job out there and we could travel together then maybe I would reconsider.  She asked me to think about it and call her if I changed my mind. No!!! my mind was set, I was not going, so draw a line under it and move on.....
Then a week before Christmas my rocky relationship hit a real low (Steven won't mind me telling you this as it as he would totally agree) and I decided that I had to change things.....ahhhh Saudia Arabia I thought, the perfect answer.  I could maybe continue our relationship, give it a bit of space to breathe (a few thousand miles!!) and address how I truly felt about it and also get myself financially back on my feet, embrace a different culture, meet new people and get the travel bug out of my system that had been simmering away for the past 3 years.
So on the 19th March after passports, visa, flights etc were all prepared I was Riyadh bound......