I guess that if I asked somebody what they did yesterday evening, and they replied, “Sat at our dining table and watched some flowers open,” then my response, not spoken, would be, “Sad!” Therefore, by my own definition, Nicki and I must be sad cases.
However, I justify the activity (which was actually not the only thing we did yesterday evening) as being in the interests of my photography hobby. If I can get anything to upload today (a struggle at the moment) it should be on my Facebook page.
If the BBC Natural History team can make an entire documentary series about the Private Life of Plants, done with time lapse photography, then why shouldn’t I?!
**********
Since handing over my role as FOM I have noticed some decrease in the volume of emails, but not as much as might have been expected. It does seem strange being in the office, carrying on with some (though not all) of the projects I was working on previously, but no longer being ultimately responsible for them.
One project, getting our synthetic flight trainer up and running again, is just about complete. I need another UPS to guard against power cuts, which will hopefully arrive this week. After that it will be ready for its fidelity check, which I hope might be possible next week. This is its inspection and approval by a Flying Operations Inspector, that will allow us to use it for training and be able to log our instrument flight time in it, plus maintain our currency on different types of instrument approach.
The new hardware is so much better than the old. It looks very similar, but the controls are much smoother and no longer over-sensitive. It makes operating it much nicer, and also means that some emergency procedures can be practised, where previously it was virtually impossible to keep the “aeroplane” flying.
On Wednesday I conducted a flight test for Ryan Cole, one of our pilots newly returned from leave. As part of his instrument proficiency check we flew to an airport about 30 minutes flight time away to conduct a type of instrument approach that is only available there and at the capital’s airport in Port Moresby. I estimate that by the time we’d flown there, conducted the approaches and flown back again, if the trainer had been available I’d have saved enough flight time to pay about a quarter of the cost of the upgrade.
**********
Our car had a very overdue clean yesterday. Although the last couple of days have been mostly dry, prior to that we’ve had a lot of rain which has turned potholes into ponds. Needless to say, mud splashes everywhere, and passing vehicles add to the coating. Even torrential rain hasn’t washed it off. I did the outside during the morning, while Nicki did the inside during the afternoon, while I cut up pieces of wood for the next packing crate. Progress is being made.
**********
Not long before we return to PNG in June, we’re planning a trip to visit Andrew & Querida and the boys, and also have a night or two with our friends Jack & Helen Keegan in Raleigh. We have some quotes for the tickets and only need to decide which day we return. We could have an extra day and arrive back at 05:00 on Monday morning, but there’s a 40th reunion for my year at vet school that evening which we intend to get to.
Decisions, decisions! An extra day, but an early arrival and motorway drive, followed by an evening suffering from jetlag, or one day less and still an evening suffering from jetlag, but with possibly an easier drive to Bristol. I’ll let you know the decision in due course.
**********
Just as the sermon was about to start in church this morning a friend came and asked for help urgently. She had been returning to the service when a man, we found out later a visiting pastor, had collapsed in front of her, fallen head first on to a concrete pad, and stayed where he’d fallen.
By the time we reached him he was starting to come round, though very groggy and with a nasty bruise and scrape on his forehead. We learnt that he was a relative of our pastor and that he was bringing his daughter back from his village to take her to school (the new school year starts this week). He’d stayed in the lowlands for a while and had contracted malaria, and as with most village people, he hadn’t access to treatment, so the disease progressed until it caused him to collapse.
We took him to the Hagen hospital with his daughter and our pastor’s wife, not the most sanitary place on the planet, but at least he should be able to get appropriate treatment and should be OK.
**********
I’ll be in Goroka all this week to conduct the Crew Resource Management part of a Twin Otter ground school for two new First Officers. The course lasts 2 to 2½ days, and then on Thursday and Friday I’ll do the aircraft endorsement training for one of them, Glenys Watson from New Zealand who arrived with her family in October last year.
I’m looking forward to doing some training again.
Enjoy the video. I won’t be watching flowers open this evening.
