Start at 12 am and leave by 7pm.

Tony and myself layed out all the cheese and hams, in the morning and of the invited 50 about 45 managed to trickle in over the next few hours.

Michael Rose and Andrew - fisher people

Paul & Liz with their daughter -moved back from Jersey.




Ian entertained his wife Sue and a captive Tony.











There's Paula, Derek a solicitor, Silvio the owner of the Grand, Pat my GP, and her husband's bald head: Robert the internal medical-man.

All thought the reds were great : some big Barolos, creamy Constantia, Bordeaux blends etc.
Only one wine was too brown, and had to be thrown away.


And we only opened eight bottles of white wine for the difficult ones.

No bottles of the one hundred quiescent champagnes were opened.


Tony checks the situation at 5pm: the food's just about gone and the wine is disappearing fast.

And Patrick, the owner of Gozo's premier award winning restaurant, It Tmun, thought that they weren't too bad either.
But he had to get back to work that evening.

September's Party Planning Time

Look who I found in Manchester airport on the way back from work. Sue and daughter Jodie with grandson Dylan.

We all got together, and I flew up front.

Then we took my Mercedes to Gozo and had drinks at my place for three more hours before they went to unpack.



Then Tony came to the island.

Here at Cafe Jubilee :







We cruised around a bit and had a few meals and drinks; here at Maji's.






After a few drives around to high class joints, we ended up at Ta Cenc ( a posh hotel that was an Italian palace, owned by the mob).






So , over a few more drinks : we decided to have a party to get rid of 50 good bottles of wine that were getting a bit aged in my study.


We decided to base the solids on hams, bread and cheeses and invite a few fishermen/ doctor friends.

But when we started handing out invites for the "do" on a a spare Sunday at the end of September, the wrong sort of animals started gathering, as always.
Just because Jean's not around.

Rainy season '08

It was still the rainy season in Kome.

I'd spent the spring and summer on Makeri wells, coring, and then the severely delayed K411.

I "finished" working for Esso in Kome.....but there was plenty of future work in to 2009.

Scott Leonard was leaving back to Houston - and that meant that Sonny would be back to his Ops job instead of working opposite me on Rig 341.

Scott had the very realistic understanding that they couldn't just replace me, after I had left at the end of July. That's whay I had 5 weeks off, and a recall from Regis in August.

Here's a picture of Scott with Snr Engineer, Andy Zitterkopf - poker player, investor, and money collector. All fine chaps.

Here's another stout chap P. Michael Claiborne, drilling engineer extraordinary :

August finished

Frank has his 75th birthday, on the15th August.
He was looking fit and prime.

We weathered through the wet Santa Maria heat.

Drinking beer!







Nadur had it's feast the month before, and was bigger and better than everywhere else as always.











The Med was glistening and as busy as hell.
Too hot to even go swimming.


I headed on back to London Gatwick then stayed at Heathrow. Then I took the slow-plane to Charles De Gaul - but we had great maritime views, before rushing on to Chad.