Sunday, January 15, 2012

Back to work!

When I finished up work last year our plan was for us all to move abroad and either take a year out or move somewhere interesting for work and life for a while.  

Eventually after looking at a good few options we decided to take some time off here on Réunion before I'd head off to work abroad, working on rotation, while the others stayed here and enjoyed life!  So seven months after I finished working Aurelie finished (Aurelie got promoted at work and wanted to spend some time at her new level before heading off on sabbatical) and we set off on our little adventure.  

So now the time is upon us, tomorrow, after almost five months here on Réunion, I'm off to London to spend a week on inductions and prep meetings before heading off to Guinea in West Africa on a five week on (between being onsite and travelling) / three week off series of rotations.

So I’m nearly good to go!  Got all my shots on Friday (two in each arm, they still ache), my tickets are ready to be printed and I’m almost packed (one small issue is that I no longer have any winter clothes, on hearing it’s 4°c in London Aurelie asked me if I had any jumpers, I said sure, look.  Her reply was “they are not jumpers, they are long sleeved tee shirts, you’re going to die).

It’s exciting, though being away from the family for so long is going to be tough, our hope is that by being here full time between rotations will make up for it (when working 9 to 5.30 we only got the kids for an hour or two a day and at weekends anyway)  

It’s interesting that the project I’m going to work on has highlighted one of the differences between my lovely wife and me.  While I can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t jump at the chance of going to a malarial jungle up a mountain in remotest Africa, Aurelie can’t understand why any one would!
  
The best laid plans....

The only problem with all this is that I was supposed to fly out to Guinea the first or second week of February, so I had planned to visit Ireland beforehand to see family and make an unannounced stop at WARPCON (my favourite gaming convention in the world) to play some games and to catch up with some of my oldest friends.  Alas it’s not to be and for the second time in 22 years working in Africa means that I’ll miss the con L.  Still I’ll try to skype in to say hi!
I will be back in Ireland for a week or so late February so hope to catch up with folks then.


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