Lots going on

So lots really is going on here on the Africa Mercy, So this week i have had to say goodbye to some very good friends, we have made some guys from Benin working with us in the galley for the past 10 months, and Friday was there last day. Even though some of there English wasn't the best i consider them good and true friends. There are so many good times i can think of that just make me smile now. Thankfully i will get to see them all once more this Saturday before we sail on Tuesday.

What what what, yes another point there (its gonna be a bit jumpy this post, sorry) so Tuesday, instead of going for my weekly volleyball match we will in fact be setting sail to head to tenerife, where the ship will be until the end of January, when it will then set sail back to west Africa (Togo most likely 99%) for another field service.

So for those of you in England i can confirm that i will be returning home on the 21st of December, and will be there for Christmas, new years and a good time after :)

well until Jan 17th, when i will be returning to the ship :)

and how long will i be back on the ship you may ask, no idea i may well answer!

The main reason for that is my recent rather exciting (when i say rather, i mean very very) that im getting married! Yup this summer (Provisionally July 1oth) I will be marrying Miss Amy Handy in Chicago :)

So i will remain on the ship till late may/early June time, then come home for a short time before hitting up America for a good friends wedding, and then my own!

What after that, i can honestly say i don't know, its something Amy and me are trying to sort out! Please do join us in praying that we do whatever the Lord wants for us, whatever that may be, and however scary it may be for one or both of us!

Football match in pictures

So last weekend was the "big" football match of the year ... The crew of the ship verses the day volunteers.

So i shall try and tell the story of the game with pictures, with a few words thrown in for good measure.

So since it was "the big one" i had to finally tell them of my goal keeping talents, which meant i sure needed a little warming up due to being a little rusty ...

No Football match would be complete without a good crowd ...

A tense tight game it turned out to be ...

Every kick seemed to be important ...

But no goal was found ... Crew 0 Day Volunteers 0

Onto Penalties it went ...

Save i did ...

And not just the once ...

Turns out the saving Pens can make you a hero ...

Final Score Crew 0 Day Volunteers 0 (Crew win 4-1 on Penalties) ...

Ah ha

So the blogger website is still working then .. yup that is my strange way of saying sorry for the lack of African news from my end! I could give you various excuses, however im sure i really have had enough time to blog along the way, so i really am sorry and do feel bad about my lack of blogging, and i really do hope i can be more motivated!

So where to start is the real question ...

So for those of you English readers you may or may not know but i recently returned home to England for 12 days. This was only 2 weeks ago, but even now seems so far ago. I had to return under sad circumstances, my Grandad had suddenly passed away so my sister, her two boys and myselftravelled back via goodness knows where to return home for a short time.

And when i say goodness knows where that really was the case, the plane was actually going in the wrong direction for about an hour! It was some sort of airbus and we had to travel to where we think was Cameroon to pick up some more passengers before heading north to England.

Funerals are always a sad time, they are a time to look back, take stock even. Families are strange things, everyone has one in some form or another. But they are all different, and well without trying to sound too boastful i feel so happy and incredibly blessed to have mine.

So yeah ... now im back on the ship and life is busy as ever, and well im gonna try and share some more about it with you this week

sounds like a good deal to me :)

Back to ship life ...

So my 2 weeks are up, and im back on the ship, which means no more 6:30am starts, and thankfully no more fears of the fan cutting out and having to sleep in pure African heat.

So its been a good 2 weeks off the ship, ive been able to spend some good time with my visiting sister and see a little more of Benin.

But its nice to be back at the same time, to join in on my new weekly bible study and to watch west ham, even though they lost was still nice to see the boys in claret and blue!

So its less than 3 months until i will be back in England for Christmas, and that sounds a long time, but it easily go by rather quickly here i can tell you!

So it is my real big hope that i can make this time count, to press in, for what is life is more important? to make our time on earth count? So my hope is that i can press in for what God has for me and for what God wants me to do, to grow closer to him and to know him more ...

Samuel ... or is it Craig???

So ... it just so happened that i was walking along the dock this very Sunday evening and an African gentleman heading in the opposite direction said someting to Amy and myself, which isnt unusual at all, but what he said i can promise you was ...

So the man says "Are you from England?"

So i say "Yes, i am!"

now you may be thinking i was wearing an England shirt or somthing of those sorts ... but no, a totally unmarked shirt,

So here is the totally unbelievable, but totally true next line ...

So the man says "I knew that cause you look like craig david"

i was speakless ... and for those of you that done understand why ...

This is Craig David ...


This is rather strange, my spell check is in spanish! so sorry for any errors!

Africa is Hot!!!

So this may sound like a wierd statement ... that africa is hot, because of course it is, and we all know that, but living on a ship with air con, sometimes, just sometimes you can forget.

So now im not living on an ship with air con, but infact a house with fans! Yes thats right for the next 2 weeks i will infact be living off the ship in a house about 20mins drive from the ship.

So this has all come about because one of the famlies lives in this house, they are in charge of some off ship stuff and incharge of "mercy teams", which are people that come on a short trip to do some sort of project or something! (will try to find out more and tell you all later!) So for the next 2 weeks Mark, the father of the family, is away so they need someone to drive them to the ship and need a guy to stay at the house, which is where i fit in!

Now i will still be working on the ship and will be there most of the time, just some parts of the evenings and nights i will be at the house!

So this is just another African adventure which i am very much looking forward to! I really hope that this can be a time to get back into some routines which i seem to have fallen out of! So lots of blogging is one big hope, and not just for the 2 weeks, but hopefully forever and ever :)

So yes, its hot here, and there is a very girl'y film on the tv, but im happy and im sure my mum will be as well since i now have some time to email her :)

love to you all

life

... life is good ...

... life is busy ...

... life involves working alot ...

... life also involves playing sports alot ...

... life should involve more blogging ...

need to address that last one i feel!

Deck 1!

So the ship that i live on has 8 decks, now on a normal day i would visit between 3 and 5 decks, maybe upto 6 or even 7 if alot was going on, but never 8, in fact until about 2 weeks ago i had never in fact ever been on all of the 8 decks ...

That all changed 2 weeks ago!

But first lets have a little "low down" on the decks so anyone that reads this gets a little more of an idea of where im living!

So ...

Deck 1 - Will come in the story!

Deck 2 - Now there is an old school type gym down on deck 2, but i have to admit i would be more on deck 2 for work purposes, this is where we have 4 huge freezers, 1 hugs fridge and 2 dry storage rooms.

Deck 3 - Would be hospital land! So if i ever have to go down there, for numbers of reasons! also a few friends rooms are on deck 3

Deck 4- Would be where i live! just alot of cabins really!

Deck 5 - Would be the dinning room, the cafe, offices and some more cabins

Deck 6 - Would be where i work, also midships (the place to hang out) and also my sister and her family's cabin

Deck 7 - Is a place for the kids to play outside so end up there with my nephews sometimes, also a few rooms to watch dvd's in

Deck 8 - Is outside! so also a place to take kids to, but also a nice play to get away and get some reading done!

So anyways ... Deck 1 ... so not really sure what exactly is there, but its engine room, and stuff like that, and well your not allowed to go there ...

So being on the emergency medical team skips this rule :) So we got the call that on the fire drill 2 weeks ago there were 2 victims, and we had to go and get one of them, and was showed down some stairs, carrying our stretcher ... and it then hit me, as i saw the sign ... "DECK 1" ... WHOOOO i had finally done it! Deck 1! So it was a nightmare carrying a man on a stretcher from deck 1 to deck 3 up some pretty tight staircases, but very worth it!

This is a little pic of another one of my fire drills from last week ...

Porto Novo

So this weekend not only brought the start of the football season but a trip to the captain of Benin, Porto Novo!

So 4 teachers, 2 nurses, 1 pharmacist, 1 photographer and myself set off on the hour journey with the biggest stretch of roundabouts in Benin! (that is not a true fact, it just felt like there were alot of roundabouts!)

(L to R - Back Teacher, Nurse, Me, Teacher, Teacher)
(L to R - Front Nurse, Teacher, Pharmacist)

Our main aim was to feed the monkeys ... now i think we soon all discovered that we didn't really even know what this actually meant, or even what kind of monkeys they were, but the people that had been before us had enjoyed it enough to convince us to go, so gone we had!

Now what else that day had in store was left up to impulse!

Firstly we decided that it would be best to go to the market to get some bananas for the monkeys, which i have to admit was a very clever plan, and after negotiating though the small walkways we made it out the other side and was very much on our way to the monkeys.

Now there was one slight problem ... we didn't actually at any point while in the market stop to get any bananas ... so the 2 i had brought with me was just going to have to do ...



So the monkeys seemed rather interested in us as did we with them so it all seemed nice enough, well until one of them told a little pee on PJ :) But we still gave them our only 2 bananas and that was about that

Well there was a little time for us to do some monkey impressions ourselves ... here be cabin 4336 and myself up a tree :)


So we just took in a little more of Porto Novo after our monkey time, a few of the group went in a local museum (which by the sounds of it was pretty shocking!) and then it was time to come back to the ship in time for me to catch the 5pm showing of Wolves V West Ham :)

Bonfire on the beach ...

Yup that's right ... about 8 mercy ships car loads of people (that's about 70 people) took to the local beach ... strangely named "Obama beach" and well after a little beach volleyball action we had a rather lovely bonfire on the beach ... using only the best wood ... ok it was part of a boat they had pulled out of the ocean but when your in Africa you just have to work with what you have :)

Knee pain ...

So we are very lucky to have the access of the local police academy to use for sporting things throught the week ... its a sand football pitch, however there is sand that is hard and compact within cm's of sand that is beach like! So running on it is quiet a challenge ... and kicking a football is something else completely!

So i somehow managed while running through a beach like patch of sand to go over on my ankle and scrape all the skin off my other knee when landing on some rock hard sand!

This i thought was bad enough, however returning to the same venue to play frisbee on friday with a plaster like thing on ... well within 30 seconds i was high in the air and suddenly brought straight to the earth! and yes of course i landed straight on my knee ... and oh did i scream!!!

So with the other 33 players all gathering round i think there was a fair bit of concern ... the plaster strangely looked like it was my skin hanging off! Thankfully it was alot of instant pain and the pain was alot less soon enough! So playing with a whole host of medical people is always handy and after getting a proper bandage i was able to return ...

And this isnt even the most significant thing that happened this friday frisbee ... We were being filmed by a proper TV film crew!!!

They are on the ship currently filming something for norwiegen tv featuring a child that is on the ship, and well came to frisbee!

Work Mates :)

So finally ... this is a pic of some of the people i work with in the kitchen :)

Will edit it with some info about them when less tired :)

Fun on the sound desk ...

When you live on a ship sometimes you have to try your very hardest to find things to do so you don't find yourself in a rut or just doing the same thing over and over ...

So on the ship there is kinda a running slide show thing where it shows notices on a loop, and well it seems like they were short on running the sound desk and looking for help ... so offered i did :)

So what this means is i am now on a schedule for the various meetings in a week and have to do various jobs on the sound desk ...

Tuesday morning ... Each Tuesday morning on the ship at the very horrible hour of 7:45 we have a meeting in the large "international lounge" This is a place where we welcome all the new people, they announce all the people that are departing, they give any notices for the week and there is a short devotion.

Thursday evening ... Each Thursday evening we have a community meeting, kinda like a church service ... the is somebody is who "MC'ing" the event, there is some worship and somebody who gives a message :) (then there is fellowship in mid ships and ICE CREAM!!!)

Sunday evening ... Sunday evening's be a church service.

Special events ... Explains itself

(international lounge is a big room that holds about 300 and is used for big meetings on the ship)
(mid ships is the middle of the ship, it is where there is a cafe, ship shop, Internet cafe type place, tv's and lots of places to sit)

So that's what each one is and well there are 3 roles on the sound desk ...

Sound man - controls all the sound!
Computer man - sorts out all the lyrics, PowerPoint's and such
Camera man - so all of the meeting go out over the tv system, this allows people in their cabins to watch the meeting as well as people working in the hospital to watch so they have a camera :)

So far as yet ive had a little go at both the computer and the camera ... the sound one is the real tricky one and i shall be happy avoiding that for a while :)

Blackout day

So once in a while it seems (this is the first since ive been here) we have something called a blackout day, this is where they have to do something to the ship that means all the power (well most of it, generators still work) has to be turned off.

Well im not exactly sure what they had to do, but whatever it is, we had a day on the ship with pretty much no power and darkness! This meant such fun things like at dinner time there was no cooked food, cause of no power so they sandwiches that were out were nice, but you could hardly see what the options to have on them were cause it was so dim in the dinning room!

This of course also inspired silly games and such! Water fighting was a big part of this :) For my birthday i was sent a couple of water guns, and Tommy has one also which i was able to borrow, so me and a couple of Aussies had a little amusement with them :) We found a perfect spot on one of the top decks that you could squirt people that were coming back to the ship from!

Not really sure how it was connected to darkness but just before the lights came back on we found ourselves lying on the floor playing some game where our arms were entwined!

It was impressive how inventive people, there were groups of people all around the ship huddled around security lights playing cards and such!

So we were enjoying ourselves so much in the dark (and the prospect of it being really really dark later) we actually booed when the lights and power came back on!

AFM F.C

So my new work schedule has meant that ive been finishing at 5pm every day, and well every Monday and Wednesday the AFM (Africa Mercy) Football team train. So ive been going the past couple of weeks, and well it seems like i started going at the right time because last Saturday the team had a match against a local team, and well i was asked to play!

So here are some photos of the day ...

This be the AFM Football team ... ok yes for those of you that look closely, we for some unknown reason play in a Chelsea replica kit :(


A little Pre game huddle ...


Some last min instructions from the coach ...



Pre game handshake ...



Ok so this picture might not look that special, but that is me and a young lady named Katie Radchuck ... Ok so that might not mean much to you ... check this out ...

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/statisticsandrecords/players/player=199952/index.html

What a start 3 mins ... AFM F.C 1 - Hevie 0 ... guess who scored :) Yup ... twas me!!! Here is even a pic that proves it ...

The crowd began to build ...

Half time score AFM F.C 2 - Hevie 1 .... this is a picture of the half time team talk ... and to be honest i didn't catch a word! it was all in languages that i sure didn't understand :)

A few of the locals ...

So the person that was taking the photos switched cameras here :( so i have no more pics of the 2nd half or end yet, but hopefully i will be able to get my hands on them soon!

So for those of you that wanna know ... i managed to play the whole 90 mins in African heat and the final score was .... AFM F.C 4 - Hevie 3 ... was a very enjoyable game and was very nice to get myself on the score sheet :D

Birthday Fun

So you can see what happened in the evening of my birthday ... (its the last post i made)

So in the day i took a group of about 40 people to a place called Babs Dock. For people that work as hard as most of the people do on the ship i can promise you they deserve some time off ... and well Babs dock is about the perfect place to go!

Its set on a lagoon, which you can only get to via a 5 min boat ride, and its just a place to chill out, relax, play some water volleyball, bowls, hammock relaxation, just chill out or really whatever you want!

So here are some pics ...

The boat ride ...



Our Chief Engineer having a few quiet moments ...


A Little mischief on the dock ...


The place to gain fuel and liquid ...

The Dock complete with canoes and Joshua ...

An action packed water volleyball game ...

Playing in the hammock ...

"Nanny" trying to avoid the water ...

A little bowls action ...

The Farrells and the Slennetts (well the ones that are in Africa) ...

Sock Golf

So there had been talk of a "Sock Golf" tournament for a while, but nothing seemed to be a happening ... but a little word with the guy who organized it last time and it was set ... to be played on my birthday!

So we had a spot on 50 players for "Sock Golf 2009"

So for those of you wondering, you play sock golf by rolling up a pair of socks and then throwing them all over the ship over a 18 hole golf course ... So i really do mean all over the ship, the course took us on decks, 3,4,5,6 and 7! Now there were no actual holes as such, but bits of paper which you had to hit ... As wonderfully shown by my sister ...

So you had to play your shots from where ever your socks landed ... as you can see it made for some interesting shots ...

So as well as there being an overall individual tournament there was all a team competition for teams of 4 ... Here be my wonderful team (L to R, Back Me, Ryan, Front Lindy, Katie)

With some wonderful team work, and alot of fun we managed to come 3rd out of the 12 teams :)

So the individual competition was a close affair with a four way tie for 2nd place with a score of 70 (the par for the course was 70) but the Sock Golf Champion for 2009, with a 2 under par score of 68 ... was ... well ...

Ah yes ... it was me :D

My new job ... one week on ...

So as of last Monday (22nd June) i started kinda a new job, and kinda not a new job!

So basically i have been asked to try and sort out the cold side of the galley, which means all the salads, cheese and meat stuff. So before i was on one of the cooking teams and basically did this for my team but now i have to do it for both teams!

So my hours have changed from shift work to a normal mon-fri 8-5 day, which i have found out even after a week has some very nice advantages, but some draw backs as well!

Its been really nice to get to know some of the people from the other team and being in charge has let me have a bit more freedom with what we do, so ive been experimenting with the salads and trying to create some new salads which the crew might enjoy ... so far so good i think from the comments ive had back :)

So its also given me the chance to play more sport that ive been able to before, which is really nice (but very tiring) ... so this is my past week in sports

Monday ... football training
Tuesday ... volleyball
Wednesday ... football training
Thursday ... rest (whew!)
Friday ... Frisbee
Saturday ... Playing for the Africa Mercy Football team in a real match!!! (more details to follow)
Sunday ... water fight!

So yeah, the draw back is that im very use to having days off and nice long lie-in's and my life doesn't seem to have slowed down outside work so am for sure a little tired, but happy that ive had a good week :)

Things i need to blog about ..

So i know im behind again ...

lets see ... if i wasnt so tired i would blog about ...

my birthday
sock golf
my mum being on the ship
my new job role
football in benin

lets hope im not so tired 2morrow and get a chance to blog!

sorry again for being behind!

Safe and Sound

So im happy to report ( and sorry i havent earlier) that my mum arrived safe and sound, a little tired and hungry but arrived all the same tue afternoon :)

Its been great to have her here with me and i look forward to the next month very much!

Thanks all :)

URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

so my mum is stuck in togo airport ...

her flight got grounded there cause of bad weather and hasnt been able to take off ... it is now due in at 2:15pm local time (same time as English time) tomorrow afternoon.

It was due in at about 7:00pm tonight, so i have no idea how she will be, if she would have been able to get any sleep or anything.

So i would love it if you are reading this before or after that time even that you pray for her, her health, energy etc that would be wonderful and that she can recover from her horror journey quickly

thank you all

Mother is coming!!!

So its funny how things just sneak up on you ... ive known for a while that my mum was thinking about coming out to Benin, and ive known for (a shorter time) but still a while that she actually is coming ...

well today is the day!!! she lands about 7:30 this evening so the Farrell family (http://www.thefarrells.org.uk/) and myself will be taking a land drover, taking a short journey to the airport ... and picking up NANNY!!! ... ok well she is my mum, but around here with Tom and Joshua she will for sure be nanny!

So this is the start of a busy week for me ... Tuesday sees Natalie's birthday (http://natalie7591.blogspot.com/)

Wednesday sees the farewell meal of a good friend of mine Lauren :(

Friday sees my nephews birthday party and the Rolland's (http://5rollands.blogspot.com/) and amy (my lovely girlfriend) leave for the summer for a total of 5 weeks

And just to finish off the week Saturday is my 25th birthday! and im trying to organize a group trip out to celebrate!

So a busy week ... but bring it on!!!

Bowls ... with a twist ...

So living on a ship in Africa ...

there is no Tesco at the bottom of my road

i don't own a BMW old school car any more that i can just jump in and travel to where ever i wish

i cant go to Belfairs for a round of golf (however i can still remember the course set up :) )

so its all about making your own fun, its amazing how funny moving peoples name tags on their cabin doors can be at midnight ...

However last night that was beaten and beaten by a distance ...

So we have created late night bowls, however we dont have any bowls, nor a jack, nor a mat to stand on, nor a level well cut playing surface ... but we make do with what we have :)

So last night was just a practice to see if it will work... oh and it will work alright!!! But i cant give any more details because its a secret underground, and well we want it to be a cool surprise to the people that get to play :)

So if anyone has any other ideas of how we can amuse ourselves on a ship then please do let me know :)

Close but no cigar ...

So the film festival has been and gone ... and to be honest it pretty much went just how i expected!

My film was ... well ... well it was something that i of course would make! I think it was lost on a good % of the people that saw it, but the people that got it really enjoyed it, i had some very good feedback from a good amount of people which was nice, some expected and some unexpected people took the time to say how much they enjoyed it which was nice. It was nice that they gave details about it ... they could have easily said something like "your film was good" and leave it at that, but everyone seemed to like certain bits and it reminded them of stuff so that was good :)

So there were some awards at the end ... and thankfully the best film won the best film award which was nice, the other awards went to completely the wrong people, but oh well that's life on a ship i guess!!! (i don't mean i should have won them, I'm not that big headed!!!)

Creature of Habit

I find this in pretty much all parts of my life ... im a creature of habit and phases, i go through spells of doing things, and then for no reason leave them totally for a while, this seems to have been the case with blogging, i think i just lost the habit for a while there! Got caught up in other things and didn't mean to stop blogging just didn't think about it!

So am trying to think back for things that have happened in the past few weeks and am posting about them as i think about them! So keep checking back for things that might appear!

Will try and post more regularly again now :)

Africa Clothes

So it seems like the thing to get done!

So im getting myself some african clothes! ... the talior didnt really speak much English and i dont speak any french so i have some idea ... i think ... of what im getting, but could be very wrong also!

So keep posted for pics when i get them back :)

Film Action

So it was late tue nite and i was lying in bed thinking about how much of a shame it was that Luke had gone home ... reason being there is a film festival coming up (sat 6th june) and people are making films for it, and i thought that Luke and myself prob woulda made a film ...

well i thought losing Luke shouldn't stop me ... so i made a film on my own! It took me the best part of both of my days off to think up the idea, film, act and edit it ... all by myself! Its funny what things suddenly become perfect places to place a video camera while trying to get a shot from a certain angle!

So i cant tell you too much about the film because im trying to keep it all under wraps before the big night and i have no idea who is reading my blog on the ship!

But i will give full details after the event and maybe even see if there is some way of posting the video on here!

Post Cheating

So i may have been slightly cheating with some posts here ...

So basically i got really busy and didn't post for a little while, so in the past few days (and i will add a couple more in the next day or so) ive been blogging about things that have happened, but to get it in time order ive changed the blogging options to show them as the day they happened!

So please do read back like 5 or 6 posts cause they are all new even if the date is a week or two ago!

Thanks all!

Frisbee Fun

So its sometimes just nice to get off the ship for a change of location ...

and well when its for something so exciting as Frisbee then it really is good :)

Now last week Luke somehow managed to still play, get home at 7:15, then leave for his plane home at 8 ... now that is impressive!

Now when i want to say is how it went this week ... So we play at the local police station! ... yes i did say police station! They have a sand football length football field that they let us play at!

So there was some big thing happening (we think the pres was in town) and there were loads of cars parked on one end of the field, so we get a fair number (20-30) so normally play the full length but this week played across the pitch.

So there were some police vans in one corner, but we had to play pretty close to them or the pitch really wouldn't have been long enough ...

So take a minute to think what is coming next ...

Yup ... you guess it ...

I ran right into one :) The Frisbee was just a little far from me so really had to run fast and stretch for it, so i caught it, but was just moving a little too fast and smack into the side!

Thankfully it was more funny than painful :)

Jesus Film

So one of the things the ship does is send two car loads of people out into the local and further reaching communities, taking with them the Jesus Film (http://www.jesusfilm.org/)

This Tue along with my brother in law Tommy (thefarrells.org.uk) we got to go along.

To be honest i think we were both lost as to what was going on for most of the time. This be because it wasn't in English, nor even french, but the local language of fong! But it was a really good time, at the start of the set up there were about 20 kids around maybe, but within 10min of the film starting there were prob 200 people all around sitting on chairs, standing and a whole load of people on motorbikes!

There seemed to be some sort of altar call at the end which alot of people came forward for! Which was very good to see and i hope that the message of Jesus has stuck with them since, for there is nothing more important than knowing Jesus!

My Trip to ICU

Ok, so its not as serious as it sounds really, so here on the ship the only private rooms in the hospital are ICU, so if anything happens to any of the crew they get taken there ...

Well i kinda gave it a good go at chopping my finger instead of a pepper!

And well had to call the duty nurse cause it was kinda bleeding some :(

So then got taken to ICU, just to clean it up and check if it needed stitches ... which it didn't :)

So all is getting better, its looking like its starting to heal nicely, so no worries there!

The Bilson

So one of the main things that you have to deal with here is people coming and going. Now living on a ship with everyone, of course you not going to know everyone, but the people that are close to you, the people you work with, cabin mates etc, well you get to know them pretty well!

Well 2day Friday 1st May i lost one :( I have good news to report that he didn't fall off the ship (and im writing this after the actual day so i know he got home safely!)

He name was Luke Bilson, and he deserves a post of his own i feel! It seems strange that he was only here for 2 months cause i feel like ive known him for alot longer than that! Now one of the reasons he deserves so much credit is that he managed to survive living with me! Yup he was my bunk mate, and for any of you that know how clean i am ... ok for those of you that don't ... im a very messy person! I will get a pic of our room, and our section of our room on here, but lets just say its pretty small for 2 people!

Another grand job he did was sharing the same schedule as me, im on the cooking team, and he was on the dining room team and thankfully on the same shift as me, which meant we got all the same days off, which is really nice here. Most people do mon-fri (apart from the nurses) whereas i do shifts so when you have wed/thu off there isnt much going on so its been great having someone around to do this that and whatever!

Luke was truly a blessing to have here and im looking forward to the Christmas reunion already :)

On the plus side ... its lovely being able to use his cupboard to chuck my dirty laundry in :) and im using his two shelves :) ... Its kinda funny really, we have room checks here, and well were normally rubbish, and our bit of the cabin is always messy, and well all because of me and me being messy! ... Well how things have changed now!!! Im actually tidy!!! its all cheating really :) i just have more places to stuff my stuff :) ... i find it really funny though cause next time they come to do a room check and see how tidy my place is ... i can just imagine them thinking "oh that Bilson boy musta been a messy one, look how tidy it is now" ... and if they did ask ... since he has left and all ... it would be rude not to blame it on him ... ok i wouldn't really ... im messy and don't care who knows it :)