I’ve posted a couple of entries in my blog in the last wee while, but nothing work-wise. I’m into single figures for the trip now. Travel for next week is sorted out. Booked my own flights to get up to Colorado and I had the office sort out flights back to the UK before I left, so that is in hand now. I’ll only have 3 weeks up in Colorado (well, 18 full days, not counting the day that I arrive or the day that I leave to be picky!) and I think it’s going to be another busy one. We have a lot of planning to do, the possibility of starting our excavations for the house build, finalising house plans, getting approval from the home-owners association (which I guess will tell us if they’re being awkward for justifiable reasons or if they have something against us specifically) getting permits in place, doing the septic system, perhaps getting the well drilled, the court case with one of our previous excavators, Dazzle is going to the Estes wool fair with one of her goat owning friends, getting the hay-barn up, and of course, the big one, get my UK taxes done and filed so that we get my seaman’s deduction refund 😉 In between the big jobs, there are some little but important ones I need to do: finish the gutters on the shed, concrete in the proper posts for the gate to the dog run and the big wooden post at the end of the drive, maybe some more internal work on the shed too, as the steps inside need attention too. (I’m exhausted just LISTING the things that need done!) Things are settling down a little bit on-board now. A few days ago we have a major incident, thankfully no-one was hurt in the slightest, but the potential for injury was enormous. That, coupled with the fact that this project, as a whole, has required us to be very flexible in the planning of operations, has meant that the trip has not been an easy one for the entire ship. On top of that, our own little group has been going through a great deal of change. One of my peers, who has been with the system for as long as any of us (well, apart from me!) has decided to move on, leaving a gap to be filled. We have also gained approval for the creation of an intermediate post between us (the supervisors) and the technicians. Four of the technicians have (or at least, will be very shortly) promoted and take on a little more responsibility. With the ship still potentially going to Nigeria, and some of the crew declining to take advantage of the opportunity of an African cruise this has all meant a great deal of re-organisation of the crews-changes and shifts. For some reason this delightful task fell on my lap (I think I must have been a little slower than the others in taking one step back when they asked for a volunteer). Needless to say, trying to sort that out has been a logical (trust me, ‘SuDuko’ is a doddle after doing this!) and logistical nightmare, and a fairly thankless task as it is definitely one area where you can’t please all the people all the time. So if my brain wasn’t fried before, it certainly is now 😯 Anyhoo, I now have the ‘one week to go (almost)’ mindset. As far as I’m concerned the 31st May can’t come soon enough. 👿
