June/Julys update

This is a joint June/July update as I haven’t got so much to report back on.

Firstly what happened early June:

We installed some bed pan washers (poo drainers as they are called) on the hospital deck and I also installed two sets of Air Conditioning systems for the IT department as their poor computers were overheating.

We were having quite a bit of nice weather before I left the north and one Friday lunchtime the Deck crew invited me to join them testing out the life boats on the Tyne – how could I resist. Well it wasn’t like Gondolas in Venice, but it was two noisy life boat engines and lose flooring with our life jackets on. We got to practice man overboard techniques and rowing the boats with the Oars. But it was a great time out relaxing for a change!

Mid-June I moved back to Redditch (where my parents live) and I went job hunting for the first few days after getting back and started work in a factory just a mile from my folks house. It’s nothing spectacular – in fact its really quite unexciting – just using presses to make clamps for the Aerospace Industry. After 4 weeks I managed to get a much better job working for a Council helping them to prepare for a massive refurbishment of 700 houses. This mostly entails reading loads of Government literature and summarising it and then writing a project brief for them. This could be for 4, 6 or 8 weeks depending on how it all goes.

In the evenings I am spending time preparing presentations and writing letters to raise more funds so I can go back and work on the ship for a further 18 months and decorating my parents new house.

I popped over to Cardiff one weekend which was really great and managed to see a fair few of my old friends and talked at my home Church on Sunday morning. Thanks to Mark and Sue for letting me borrow their house for the evening to have friends round. It was really great to be home again, but I was very aware that I won’t be moving back there when my expedition is done.

I hope to be back in Newcastle early September now, but it all depends on this new job. So I’ll let you know how it goes in a few weeks time.

Cheers guys & gals.

Have a great summer.

Paul