Yet More Work

All work and no play makes Karen a very tired little bunny!! I feel like I have been here forever. Three night watches in a row was hard work and not something I would have done out of choice, but I didn't realise that was how it would pan out until it was too late to say no.

But I survived!! My day off on Tuesday was spent mostly in bed sleeping. I got up at about 2.15pm and did very little for the rest of the day except make some tea and watch tv. Then it was back to work on Wednesday. Today is my second day watch so just Friday night and Saturday night to go then I can enjoy some well earned time off.

The picture above was taken by Alex (our resident IT chappie) and is of our jetty with the Chevron refinery and No. 6 berth in the background. It gives you some idea of the lovely views I have at night when the Haven is all lit up like a fairy castle and bears no resemblence to the industrial eyesore it is by day.

Ffion is not very well today. She had chronic ear ache all night and when I got up this morning she was sat in the living room sobbing her heart out. I really thought something terrible had happened to one of her friends, the way she was crying, but it was just the pain in her ear. Its amazing how quickly big grown up 18 year olds revert to being small children as soon as they are ill and want their mummies. My Mum stepped in this morning and took her to the Doctors where she was prescribed anti biotics and she is not tucked up in bed. Hopefully she will be feeling a lot better soon.

It's my butterfly day tomorrow and I really must try and get to St. Tescos and stock up on some supplies, I may even venture into Big Tescos in Haverfordwest as our store is getting worse by the week, with far too many discount brands and empty shelves. Anyway only two more watches \0/ roll on Sunday Morning!!

Work, Work and a bit more Work

I'm currently about half way through this week's work marathon. This is my second night watch and under normal circumstances I would be looking forward to four days off after this but as I explained before I have another night tomorrow night (overtime to cover for John Clarke who has gone to South Shields) then a day off on Tuesday which will probably be spent mostly in bed before I am back to work on Wednesday for another four watches (a swap to enable Keith to get a fortnight's holiday). But then joy of joy I shall have 16 whole days off!!

Friday night when I got home Noel got a chinese in and we had a quiet night in watching the rugby. Wales v Canada and as expected we won, but not as convincingly as we should have. It was a poor first half and definately not what I had been expectings... especially the kit.. what an awful colour!!



The above however was a brilliant try by Leigh Halfpenny in the final seconds of the game, a moment of pure class in an otherwise poor performance. We will have to do much better than this against the All Blacks next week!!

Saturday I did a bit of shopping with Erin in the morning before getting some sleep in the afternoon for my night watch. It was a pretty steady nights with jobs right the way through which made it go fairly quickly. Erin had been to a wedding in Narberth and stayed with a friend so she made her way to work at 7am and got a lift home with me (dirty stop out). Noel had taken Meurig to Cardiff airport at 4am as he has gone to Marbella with Doctor Pete for a week.

Today I slept until about 2.30pm and it would have been longer had it not been for next door's bloody doves dancing on the roof with hobnailed boots on (well that's what it sounded like anyway). I got up, watched some tv, hunted some eggs then came to work again.

It is now 1.35am and the watch is slipping past slowly. I shall sleep most of the day again tomorrow ready for tomorrow night, but at least tomorrow I shall get paid overtime!!

Berthing Plan

Another chance to escape presented itself today with Joe being in Port Control for the morning. So come 9am once I had handed over to him I rang Murco Jetty and asked if I could come down and observe the CARRY berthing at Murco 2.

I nipped home to collect my camera (as waste of time really as I wasn't allowed to use it on the jetty), then I headed out to the jetty. It was weird driving the quarter of a mile or so along a really narrow roadway over the sea. I parked up and walked down to Berth 2 where I met Graham (the Head Operator). My timing was perfect as the CARRY was just approaching the berth with two tugs.

It was really interesting watching the lineboats take the ropes from the ship and run them to the dolphins (mooring dolphins not bottled nosed ones!!). Erin's boyfriend Martin was on one of the lineboats but no amount of waving managed to attract his attention (I shall have words with him next time he is here). Bit by bit the ship edged closer to the berth, I could hear the Pilot giving instructions to the tugs and talking to the terminal to find out how much more he needed to maneouvre to get her in exactly the right postiion so that the jetty loading arms were lined up exactly with the ship's manifold (sorry if this bit is a bit technical!!).

Finally she was in the right place and tight against the fenders so I said my thank yous and made my way back along to the jetty to solid ground. I still had some time to kill so I decided to pay another visit to the Dry Dock because they had the sail training ship the LORD NELSON in.

Last time I was down there Paul told me to come back anytime they had something interesting in so I took the opportunity and got some great shots of this tall ship laid up in the dry dock.

All too soon I had to get back and actually do some work but at least it had broken the day up.

Tonigh we are watching the Wales v Canada match which so far has not been too brilliant but I have high hopes for the second half. Not too sure about the boys playing in yellow though.!!

Winning Ways

\0/ We are back to our winning ways at the real live Pub Quiz. We hammered the Admiral Benbow last night 60 v 34... and the A team lost just for good measure. Blodwyn wasn't too annoying last night although she did still insist that she was thinking of the correct answer after it was revealed (not a lot of bloody good that really!!).

We had a really nice meal (fillet steak, chips, salad and onion rings for me) and it was lovely to all sit down together, it dosn't happen often these days. Noel and the girls then left and I got on with the serious business of quizzing. There were some very hard questions again tonight especially on our local council (e.g. who is the Deputy Leader... silly things like that.. no doubt one of the members of the question setting team works for the local council!!).

I have been tasked with producing a GK and a Film round for when it is our turn to set the questions, this shoudn't be too hard to do given my vast collection of quizzes. I don't think we are question masters until the New Year so we have a bit of time to get our act together.

Today I have started my marathon set of watches. It is grey and wet and miserable and I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. I can't wait to get this lot out of the way and have my 16 days off, during which we will be undertaking the annual Smith family expedition to Centre Parcs.

Lazy Days

I have just enjoyed a very relaxing four days off. I have done very little, which while being incredibly lazy was also incredibly enjoyable and I was making the most of it as I have an awful week starting tomorrow. 9 watches with only 1 day off in between. This is due to a nights overtime on Monday (3 nights in a row)then Tueday off and back to work on Wednesday for four days... mind you after that I do have 16 days off .

Yesterday I did a bit of retail therapy which cheered me up no end. I bought four new tops and some christmas cards. I also spent a lovely couple of hours with my Mum and Wayne just chatting and drinking coffee. I also did some cooking in the morning and made some pate and soup.

Today has been really lazy. I made some cawl this morning for tea tomorrow and Friday as I am working then I actually hosted for a while much to mine and everyone elses amazement. This afternoon I have just watched TV and lazed around.

Tonight we are all going down the Ferry Inn for a meal, which will be really nice as I can't remember the last time we went out as a family. I will then stay behind and play quiz and hope we win. Blogging may be a bit sparse in the next few days due to lots for work but I shall try my best.

We shall Remember them

I cried twice today. Once at 11am while watching the ceremony at the Cenotaph (the Last Post gets me every time). And the second time was when I read Ellie's blog. Apologies for stealing your idea Ellie but I have loved this song since I first heard it years and years ago.




My Great Grandfather was at the battle of the Somme. Thankfully he survived and lived to be 90 so I had the honour of knowing and loving him (he died when I was 15). Our generation owe his such a huge debt of gratitude, as we do to my Grandfather and his generation for WW2. With only four survivors of WW1 still alive it wont be long before no one will be alive that actually experienced it, lets just hope we never let their sacrifce be forgotten.

Oh YESSSSS!!!!!

There are some days when it is the best feeling in the world to be WELSH and today is one of them.

All hail to the king... Joe Calzaghe!!