2012 is drawing to a close and it’s been a hard year. We have had a lot of sadness and some joy mixed in. Sadness, as we have experienced a number of losses, joy as we celebrated a new arrival and we did reach one of our long term goals.

My father passed away in March of this year. He had a heart-attack while I was in India and, although I made it back to Scotland in time he never regained consciousness.  Melisa and I had been planning a trip to the UK later in the year to spend some time with him but, unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.

Melisa’s grandfather Sam passed away too this year, and Norman, one of my favourite cousins. When I was a young boy, I always looked up to my cousin Norman, more I think, than even he realised. He was into many hobbies that I later followed and his taste in music partly formed my own. The saddest thing, I think, is that the last two times I saw him were at my mother, then my father’s funerals.

In December a good friend of Melisa and I suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. Dr BJ Ferrell was our first and best friend in Colorado. We first met her when we were visiting  in 2004 and remained close friends ever since.

During the year we also had to take the hard decision to put down one of our livestock guardian dogs, Mitch.

One bright ray of hope during the year was the arrival of our new niece, Isadora. She and her mother, Jessica, came to visit us on the ranch for a few fun filled weeks.

Overshadowed by the sadness were all the achievements that we had on the ranch. We reached one of our long term goals in that we managed to clear all the debt that we had, both in the UK and the US. Our ranch is paid for and all we have at the moment are our everyday living expenses.

New livestock on the ranch have arrived, with four llamas and, for now, seven nigerian dwarf goats. Of course we had the usual battle of attrition with new kittens and cats lost to predators.

We did manage to build a new barn, partly to house the ever expanding fleet of vehicles. This year we added a number of vintage vehicles namely a 1960′s Serra Scottie Travel trailer, a 1970 VW bus and a 1972 VW Karmann Ghia Coupe. The trailer is immaculate, as it had been recently renovated, and the VW’s are mechanically sound and only need a little cosmetic work.

Work wise it has been a busy year, especially the latter six months. Long trips and short leaves made it very tiring. As much travel as I usually have, but not as many destinations, particularly compared to 2010 and 2011. Norway and the UK multiple times, a transit to Malta and a short trip to India.  Finally, spending Christmas and the New Year on the ship in the Shetland Islands.

So 2012 comes to a close and there is little time for reflection as we already have big plans for 2013. Looking forward… the way it should be!

New Arrivals

So, the four new Alpacas have arrived on the ranch and are slowly settling in. The vet was out today to give them the once over. We were going to geld one of the males, but have decided to keep him intact for the time being. Who know’s, he may manage to hang on to his family jewels!

I’ve been off-shore in Australia for four weeks now, and I was in Darwin for the week before that too. The job was slow in getting started, but now things are heading slowly to an end, for us, at least! By the middle of the week we should be done and I can head back to Colorado and my dear wife again. The big question will be, ‘how long for’, the answer to which, I don’t know at the moment. It could be a short one and then off again, or,if  there are delays with paperwork, it might be for a while. The next job is likely to be one in India, so I may have to do the transit there (short leave) or go down once the ship has arrived for the actual job (long leave). By the time I do get off the Sapura 3000 and head back to the USA, I should know for how long!

The migration of the on-line stores is almost complete, in fact, Melisa is almost to the satge where she’ll have to up-grade the package to be able to list more items!

Here is one of her latest listings:

Well, since my last post, I’ve been back in Colorado briefly and now I’m away again! In fact, I’ve been away for a while, nine days in fact. I’m in Darwin, Australia at the moment, where it’s a bit of a change from Colorado where winter is getting ever closer. Here, of course, it’s getting into summer. I had expected to be off-shore by now, but when I arrived, all keen for a crew-change, I was told that the job had been delayed for at least a week. Now I can understand, with my-self having traveled halfway around the world from Colorado, why I’ve been put up in a hotel (on pay) for a week. But it’s a bit surprising that other personnel from various parts of Australia have been kept here too! At the moment I’m scheduled to be joining the vessel on Thursday, so I’m expecting an update on that tomorrow or the day after to confirm or hear of further delays!
So, with having all this time on my hands it’s been an opportunity to a: catch up on my sleep, and b: do a bit of work on the on-line stores.
Melisa and I have had a revamp of the store as we had planned and they are now all accessible from the menus on both her, and my, blogs
Melisa’s blog is at albaranch.net while mine is at morrison.uk.net (but you know that already as you are actually here!)
Melisa’s blog has a ‘Shop Online’ menu item with a drop down for the stores; my blog has an “Alba Ranch Stores” menu item with drop down.

I’m still in Singapore working on the Sapura3000 crane barge. Things are progressing, though it’s still up in the air, it’s looking like we might even be finished by Sunday. I’ve all but given up on seeing the Singapore GP for a number of reasons. Although it’s a ‘street’ circuit, most of it is inaccessible to the casual public. You can get general access tickets, but they are all sold out, most of the grandstand tickets have been sold out and there only a handful left for the most expensive grandstands – $1300 a seat on raceday! Also, to recoup the costs of the GP the Singapore government have a hotel tax for the four days of the Grand Prix weekend; 30% on top of the room price for the hotels closest to the track and 20% on the other hotels. And the hotels themselves jack up the price. So, unless Subsea7 HAVE to put me in a hotel because they can’t get me flights, I’m not going to go out of my way to try to stay if we are finished early. Disapointed, but having to face reality!
Tomorrow I should have a better idea of when we will be finished on-board and then it will be up to Logistics to try and change my flights home (unless they want to keep me here on pay until the 23rd of October, which is when they booked my flights for originally! hahaha.