Silver Sands

The "Silver Sands Hotel" where we are staying is only three star, but it is in a lovely location in the very south of the island.

The waves are very rough........I was slammed down by "The Arm of Thor", even though I was out in the deeper green water......the surf itself will knock you over. But the para-sailors & surfer love it!

The food can be a bit quetionable......we have had all grades here.

From crusty flying fish to wonderful dorado....

But the local rums are good, as is the Banks beer.......and they have a good wine list which is a lot cheaper than Gozo.

And Margaret cleans our big suite every day......we have a kitchen, balcony, two bedroom/sitting rooms, etc. So we can make a cuppa, or bacon sandwich when we need

First class to Barbados

Off we set in BA "FIRST", looked after a wonderfully attentive crew.

Tony discovered the delights of "Blue Label" whiskey

And we had a very alchoholic time....and didn't misbehave too much.

Somersaulting car on cliff edge

I'm posting this, as I'm not too busy....but I will be at the rig, all day & night on Wednesday.

It's Jean's birthday today (12th)...and they'll be eating at the "Tavern on the Green" in Central Park, and seeing the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall tonight.
Happy birthday darling.

This set of photographs was sent to me by Revel.
The car hits the crash barrier, leaves the road and somersaults across the gap, and ends up pointing the wrong way :

But what a gap........

................the hand of God was working with split-second timing that day !

Steve Heaven on the lawn

This was taken some time ago during the preparations for our celebrations for not having had a serious accident for 20 million man hours on this project.
This is the lawn behind our Esso offices.

The featured model is Steve Heaven, a Senior Safety Advisor, who is a Brummy living a clean & honest life in Thailand. He arrived here on the same day as me: 12th Dec 2001.
He is a good mate in spite of his diplomatic skills.

The skies are just like this now in February...30-35°C and with a very pleasant breeze.

And here is a good joke sent to me by Revel Barker, a friend who can be glimpsed on a photo in an early party-blog:

Bob the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called "pullets" and eight or ten roosters,whose job was to fertilize the eggs. The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the soup pot and was replaced.
That took an awful lot of his time so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so Bob could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

The farmer's favorite rooster was old Butch, and a very fine specimen he was, too. But on this particular morning Bob noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! Bob went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. But to Farmer Bob's amazement, Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.
Bob was so proud of Butch, he entered him in the County Fair and Butch became an overnight sensation among the judges.
The judges not only awarded Butch the No Bell Piece Prize, but they also awarded him the Pullet Surprise as well.

Clearly Butch was a politician in the making: who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention?

Jean's In New York

Jean's now in New York with her best friend Larraine and with temperatures of -2 t0 -9°C, they are surviving Manhattan in their fur coats.


This picture is of Oswego, to the north of the state, where they have received up to 10 feet of snow. Because of the exceptionally mild winter, the great lakes did not freeze over, and now the cold north-westerly winds that are bearing down on NY state from Canada, are picking up warm moisture, and depositing loads of snow on landfall.

It's crisp (and freezing) in NYC, and the ladies have phoned me from various familiar venues. Friday they were listening to Jazz at Birdland on 34th, and last night the were eating at the exclusive Rue 57 restaurant where Jack Buttigieg, from Qala, is the manager.

I have made some more "exclusive" reservations for the coming week......and I'm a little jealous to be here in Chad...but my time will come !!!

Not much going on here down in warm Kome. It's 30-35°C, and very dry & dusty here in the winter season. But the skies are an unbroken light blue, and the constant breeze is refreshing.

Talking of "Blue Skies" : I noticed on the TV news playing in the office's commissary, that Exxon Mobil declared at $40 billion profit for last year.

This means that they are making $100+ million/ day.....NET

This is their stock price in comparison to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which has also done pretty well in this long bull market.

But, big oil has done VERY WELL.

Everybody is very happy.

It makes you want to bug a honey....slug a dummy, rub yer tummy, tug it funny :

• NO :--- HUG A BUNNY !!

Jean's over in Manchester getting ready to freeze in New York....and I'm chasing World Cup Cricket tickets for Barbados. The travelling life goes on......

Well.......It's February.....normally a really dire month, unless you are in New Zealand or South Africa....eating, drinking, swimming in the sunshine.

This month Jean has her birthday (with Larraine) in New York....she'll be celebrating at "Rue 57 Restaurant" on 5th Avenue & 57th street.

Then there's Valentine's day , followed immediately by "Carnival" all over the world.
This will all pass me by; as I'll be here in Chad......working

All I have to look forward to is leaving here on the 21st and resting up in a London hotel.
Then I meet up with Tony on Friday; the next day we slide into couple of large 1st Class seats on British Airways to Barbados on the 23rd!!

Then it's : "Hit the Beach!"

I had a slightly eventful journey down here......firstly the bloody expensive ticket that normally waits for me at a desk in Malta airport was only a reservation, and hadn't been paid for.



So I coughed £m1985.34 up for just the SINGLE journey to N'Djamena, business class.
That's a $6150 price tag or £3000+ sterling!!!

Which will take me some time to get back.....it seems that it had been paid for in Houston, but that fact (ie. the Ticket number etc) hadn't trickled down to Malta through the Air France partnerships!


It was fairly uneventful through the usual security mess of Malpensa, and then I checked in the Sofitel in Paris - courtesy of Air France, as I had an onward flight.
Later in the Novotel in N'Djamena, I found that I'd left a really good shirt in this hotel, when I was packing......but they'll send it on to my UK address...

Business class was full of "UN/ UNESCO" people flying down to N'Djamena....they are becoming more frequent nowadays!
There were some delays in going down to Kome on the lunchtime plane, as it was in Douala instead of N'Djamena ........ finally I arrived in the office in the drilling camp at 6pm.....

That's almost exactly 2 1/2 days after setting off from Qala.

For my last week in Gozo I wanted to finally get a scuba diving PADI license. I moved in to the San Andrea Hotel at Xlendi, on the Sunday night, to start lessons with the affable Rudi, of the St. Andrew's Diving school the next day.

The rooms were very clean, small and adequate, with great views of the bay.....and 10 metres from the Dive shop. The TV had no English channels (due to temporary satellite problems), but the staff were excellent and tried to help as much as possible.
http://www.hotelsanandrea.com/

Despite the very tight neoprene suit that I had to borrow, I learned a lot and enjoyed it. Having completed half of my diving exercises and more than half of my written work; I managed to get a 'barotrauma' on the last dive.

My nose bled, and my ears didn't 'pop' or equalise. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001064.htm
So that was the end of diving for a few days, and as I was flying five days later I went to see Patricia, my doctor, and she passed me on to Hermann the ENT specialist. And he medicated me & explained the engineering of an ear!!


But Xlendi has wonderful swimming as you are enclosed by the valley.
Back in late November, my best friend Tony Lloyd flew in for a 30 hour visit....and a glorious swim!!
And we meet up with the very lovely Maryann and Mariella, who congratulate us on being able to swim at our age!

Seen here on 24th November : Water temperature 18-19°C, land temperature 22°C.
He came in to Malta from Zagreb (he is the MP for central Manchester, UK, and specialises in international affairs, especially chasing down war criminals) via Milan late Friday night.

We had dinner at the Grand, and the next day we did the tourist sites:

Calypso's cave above Ramala Bay....supposedly where brave Ulysses was wrecked and spent 7 years.

The Gjigantia stone circle was a must as it is supposed to be the oldest erection in the world.....c. 6000 years old.

Many other places were included, such as St Ignatius who has his bones interred in the little church above Hondoq. This church also has ancient graffiti from the visiting-rampaging corsairs.

After our one hour swim in Xlendi, we went to the Citadel in Victoria, had lunch at Maji, the Labour Party headquarters in It-Toqq, and when we bumped in to Doris there, we had a guided tour of the 'Main Square' restaurant thrown in.

Now well on the way down Saturday's slippery slope we headed to Gleneagles in Mgarr and had a few scoops there.

Finally we went home and changed and ate at the "D bar" in Qala, before a 4am get-up and departure!!

Aye, swimming in Xlendi is pretty good, and you can find some good people & decent food down there nowadays!!

When we came back from Sicily, my brother Chris & his wife Sue were in Qala, visiting their new house. I threw them and a few friends a big dinner party at Maji's.

My doctors Robert and Patricia, my pharmacist Michael & wife Frances were there, together with Mark the hairdresser with his good friend Johnathan.

Vanessa and Denise were on there own as Jason was serving us, and D's heart-throb, James, was in the UK.

Arabella (Vanessa's sister) was invited to bring the new boy-friend Rene; she looked lovely, but he turned out to have poor social graces!

Kevin and Mary-Jane were there also, having their normal quiet fun time!

But generally we had a wonderful time; aided by a dozen bottles of pink champagne, half a dozen bottles of Pinotage plus a special five-course menu that Jason and Chef Joseph concocted for us.

I was everywhere.......enjoying good food, wine & company....as always.

After the New Year

After the New Year's partying we did some business and paid some bills....and generally chilled out.

Here I am on the bike I bought for Tony's use in Gozo.

And a ride up to the lower regions of Nadur, rewards you with a pretty good view...and a bit of a sweat.

We then shot off to Sicily (Taormina) for a week of shopping, eating, drinking & walking.

From the Corso Umberto (where we stayed in the Hotel Isobella) we zig-zagged up the roads of the small city for a couple of hours. There is a "Castello" & church that straddle the hill-top above the town, and just below them a restaurant with this glorious view of Mt. Etna.

A few glasses of Prosecco & some hand-made pasta, watching the white puffs venting above the snows of the distant volcano, and we were ready to go down.


600 sloping steps and twenty minutes later, we were back to our start point!





But we enjoyed all the exercise...and felt that we deserved our over-indulgences in the restaurants.

I think that this means that I am "bristling".

But I wasn't. Jean enjoyed the shopping (picking up some boots, a coat & some fancy tights for New York).

I was seduced in to buying 10 pairs of long socks!

Swimming 1st January

After the swims....we came home & started chopping up smoked salmon & fois gras for a lunchtime party with Frank & Betty and their daughter Karen & son-in-law Fred.

Here are Fred & Karen basking in the early afternoon winter sun.

It was so hot on that afternoon, Betty had to move out of the sun!!

January 1st at 11:45am it was like swimming in chamagne at18 deg C.

Jean was so jealous, that she came in the water in her underwear