Thursday 27th October 2016

And so Thursday dawned, the most important day for 14 months that I have been on the project. Today, the installation vessel was due to reach the site and begin work.

This shit got really real.

But first I had to get up and work up enough enthusiasm to get dressed and get to the office. It does feel like sometimes I am in a cage, a gilded cage for sure, but a cage nonetheless. So, anyway, breakfast.

There is a massive bowl of strawberries and another of blueberries, so I fill my bowl with both, top it up with yoghurt and then get a coffee. The room has a few other diners, including an old lady who had her table laid each morning, complete with selection of rolls, bread and two pots of coffee. I wonder what her story is.

I drive to the office, without incident again, which is always good, to find the training for all the techs in full swing already, and so I take to my office, power up the laptop and look at the mails that have been pinging through the interwebs through the night.

I could describe, in details what I did on the morning, waiting for the lunch rolls to be delivered, but it was really what I did on Wednesday, Tuesday, and every day when in the portacabins.

Some people complain about the rolls, but freshly baked and prepared rolls with cheese, ham, salami or salmon; all free, what's not to like? I eat mine in the office and cover the keyboard with seeds.

The wind gets up, stopping work offshore for the day, so we attend meetings, listen to plans for the next day, two days and so on. Then we walk back to the office for yet more coffee.

I finish at half four, go back to the hotel to find coaches everywhere. No explanation as to what was going on, but buses were parked three deep outside the hotel, the move enough to enable to to get the car between them so I could get into the garage.

By the time I had had a shower, just one remained out of the ten or so that had been there, and soon that had gone too, taking its passengers from whence they came.

With the clocks going back next week, I realise this was the last chance to visit the massive parish church in the centre of town, so I walk along the street of bars, crossing the main square still filled with a fair, and onto the area outside the church.

Needless to say, it is locked, but I snap it from all angles, and am taken by it's Gothic majesty. It is a smaller version of the Dom in Cologne, which isn't a bad thing. There is also a tower of another ruined church, so I snap that too.

I walk back through the town as the shops were closing, ending up at the hotel where I grab a glass of strong beer, and sit outside watching the sun set. But as the previous day, the sun was obscured by clouds, but ten minutes later the clouds in the sky lit up by the light from the sun which had set. I walked along the prom to snap it, the clouds and the light reflected in the buildings.

It was too easy to decide to go to the burger place next to the hotel, and order a cheese burger and a beer. It wasn't too busy, but enough to keep the staff rushed. Phew, I am done, and there is no football to watch. so I can go to bed at a sensible time, and be up in tme to pack and prepare to go home tomorrow.