It's been a very 'funny' weekend. Last Friday morning I was not exactly laughing though. In fact, I woke up feeling terribly sorry for myself. You see, I had a mucky yucky eye infection.
Not naming names but my daughter had had one three days previously which I think crossed over to me.
My wife, however, is blaming the compound pool which is looking a bit less than clear, and which (according to one of our neighbours) has shrimps living in it.
We have been pretty much living in it too because Hannah has just started to enjoy swimming under water and jumping off the diving board and there's not much else you can do to enjoy the 'great outdoors' in Bahrain in summer except go swimming.
Anyway, my right eye was a mess. I looked like a cross between the elephant man and someone who had gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson. It was just lucky that I had a clear weekend with no parties or events to do because one look at me and my grungy eye and guests would probably have run away.
I kept itching my eye, and when Wendy noticed me moping on the sofa struggling to keep teabags on my face she suggested we treat it with eye gel, make an eye patch from some tissue paper and sticky tape it on my face to let my eye heal. (She's very creative my missus!)
Anyway, after said creation was applied, I looked rather less deformed and rather more like an extra from The Pirates of the Caribbean. So an improvement, I guess!
I don't know what you're like, but when I feel a yucky I just want to crawl into bed and stay there till I feel better.
So I retired for the afternoon, slept and woke up in the early evening feeling a little better... Of course, that night I couldn't sleep at all, I watched TV till the wee hours and went to bed with my eye patch still in place.
I was awakened at some ungodly hour of the morning with little Hannah jumping all over the bed and wanting to play games. Wendy peeled off the eye patch, Ouch! (it had stuck quite well to the goo that'd oozed from my eye).
But when I cleaned it up it was very much better, though still pretty red and pretty puffy.
By Saturday night I looked almost normal (for me anyway) and so seeking a bit of comic relief I went with my mate Paul down to the Dilmun Club for the special comedy club which I'd been invited to by the manager, Murthy.
What a good night it turned out to be. Starting with the food which first class and plentiful; there was a choice of fish 'n' chips, steak and kidney pie, chicken tikka masala and even my favourite; mashed potatoes. Being me I thought, "Let's have a bit of everything". I call it the 'krazy' mix and boy it went down oh so very well.
Later, I chatted to an old friend of mine, Duncan Edwards who lives in Dubai and was the promoter of the event.
He told me that the three comedians are booked up to one year in advance and they come from the world famous Comedy Store in London.
They performed two nights in Dubai then here in Bahrain for one night then onto Qatar for two nights, then one night in Abu Dhabi and back for another two nights in Dubai. Blimey, just listening to their schedule made me feel tired.
Duncan brought on the first act; a very funny guy all the way from Ireland, next up was a laid back guy from the US, the last comedian hailed from Liverpool and was absolutely not stereotypical of Liverpudlians; because he wasn't funny at all. (See review in Social Scene). But all in all, it was a great night out.
During the evening my mate Paul reminded me several times to stop rubbing my eyes "cos it will spread". Of course, I took no notice of him and on Sunday morning sure enough, I awoke to find that my eye infection had travelled from my right eye across to my left.
Sigh! It was a workday and sleeping all day was not an option. Working on radio it doesn't much matter what you look like so I decided to improvise another eye patch. But when I got to the car I realised it was not such a great idea to be blind on one side when you're driving so I removed it.
I drove off musing about what a barrel of laughs life can be. Times like this you might as well laugh at yourself, I guess. Anyway, it's certainly feels better to have folks laughing with you than at you.
Keep seeing the funny side; which right now, is my left side.
All my love,
Krazy Kevin