m/v Africa Mercy Update August 2006

Well I thought my blog was due a textual update, enough of fun photos of friends and ship.

I have been working in paid employment now for 2 months. It’s been quite weird, going back to working for money rather than for what I enjoy, mind you is hasn’t been that bad. My first job in the factory for 4 weeks was pretty bad – I really was only going in for the money – but my new job working for a local Council I actually quite enjoy. It is mainly doing design work, helping them with a few different projects, from redesigning the gas network in High Rise flats, to a complete refurbishment of about 700 houses to a cooling system in a Golf Course Shop to a feasibility study for refitting a School Kitchen. The guys I work with are great and fun and days come and go quickly, but I am really missing work on the ship at the moment. I feel guilty about being away whilst there is still lots of work left to do, that I am not involved in. So yeah I am looking forward to get back up to Newcastle early/mid September to get back in my overalls, boots and hardhat (and don’t forget safety goggles) and be climbing the gangway once again back into ship life.

It’s been nice living at home though as well. I have managed to catch up with most of my friends who are still around the Redditch area and seen a few old school friends, some whom I haven’t seen in 8 years. It’s also been great to make some new mates whilst I have been around here to and get involved in a great Church here.

I have also got addicted to the myspace phenomenon, which has also been a great way of catching up with friends that I haven’t seen for a long while and I haven’t managed to catch up with in my trip down south and to Wales. Hope you guys are doing well.

Well I’ll have more ship updates once I get back and get involved in the day to day ship life again, but one cool bit of news. Next Christmas (not this Christmas) the ship will dock in the Canary Islands for about 4 weeks for the ships annual dry docking (which means a few weeks holiday for us- well we’ll need it after 12 months with out one!) so only another 450 days till I get to go on holiday!! It’s seems like I’ve missed out on going this year again! Poor old Paul!! Get out a little Violin!!
On that self absorbent note! See you guys, keep in touch and if you don’t know my email address, leave a comment with your email address on it (for Blogspot Users) or send us a message (for MySpace users) and I’ll get back to you. I’ll now be leaving Blogs at Blogspot and MySpace.