3rd September 2018 (Belated Fathers Day)

Annette had a surprise for me , all I knew was that I had to be prepared to get on Ethel on a ride. 

At the appropriate time we got on Ethel to go on an adventure. We headed out the way to Mele Beach, then turned right (hey this isn't the way to Mele Beach) at the roundabout after Manples, and took the road towards the Bauerfield Airport.  So me thinks it wasn't a surprise lunch at the Mele Beach Bar, watching the latest race from the MotoGP on their huge TV screen. Still me sitting on Ethel guessing were we where heading to. We arrived at the airport and headed to the domestic terminal. We were met by our friend and Air Taxi pilot Josh Kaboha. We went to Air Taxi office and waited while Josh went to sort something out.  He returned and headed out onto the ramp where he gave Annette a set of earmuffs.  I thought, cool we are going for a site seeing flight.  It was MUCH better than that, my very special darling and love of my life had purchased a 30 minute training session on a Cessna 172.  Josh was the pilot, and Annette was the passenger.

Yours truly and Josh

Action shot with me on the controls, I flew the aircraft from the start up at the beginning of the runway. We had some low cloud to fly through

Annette sat in the back and was the team photographer . The scenery was fantastic. We have many photos during the flight, here are a few. For those of you of aeronautical bent, we flew at 7,000 feet except when we descended to 1,200 feet as we flew in over Port Vila Harbour on approach to the airport to land.

Iririki Island from 1,200 feet. This is the Island Resort, very nice place to go for a day trip if you are in Vila. Serves great food, and has several swimming pools ( as well as resort accommodation)

On approach to land

Phew there is the bit of tarmac we want to land on.  All too soon the lesson was over. Hey Captain Dave Morgan (Air NZ) the runway looks good to me for Air NZ to resume flights to Vanuatu, just saying 👍😃. Thank you Josh for a wonderful experience, and thank you Annette for the very special surprise 💗

Sunday 2nd September 2018 Fathers Day

Fathers Day started with Church, Annette was in the worship group for one final time.  So she headed off at 7.00am for rehearsals (the church services start at 8.30am). She sang wonderfully even though she had the beginnings of a cold, (I found out afterwards she didn't have the mic switched on)

We have a large Chinese fellowship at the ICC, so the songs are shown in both English and Mandarin.

After the service we headed to The Grand have a coffee with friends. Here we are with two couples we have come to know at the ICC. Beside Annette are Hanne and Iain Haggarty, then beside me are Peter and Yvonne Gillespie. 

After lunch we headed down to the waterfront for some fresh air and excercise.

31st August 2018

In the last two weeks I found some more old financial files. Not sure why I hadn't looked in a particular cupboard in the meeting room before (or maybe I had and had forgotten what was in the cupboard) . I found around 50 East-light folders going back to 1985.  I arranged with Johnathan Tarip to take the folders out to Etas School to use the new incinerator that the team from St Kentierns had built a few months ago. We donated the empty folders to the school to use or to sell to raise funds for the school.

Thank you to Jonathan, Jenita, Leinangus and Annette for the hard work.  I could only sit and watch.

 The PCV truck being loaded.

 The incinerator

Flames soon starting doing their thing

The tam at work.

24th August 2018 Raining

We have been a bit tardy in updating the blog over the last 2 weeks.  So this is the start to get our blog up to date. Hopefully we can get them into chronological order.

The Friday was busy preparing some reports for Elder Meto for the PCV General Assembly. He was on the afternoon flight. Today was wet.

This is the gear we need to travel on Ethel when it is wet.  That is my leg inside the yellow rubbish bag.

New shops being built down close to the water front by the market. interesting island style shop front

Raining so the some of the items for sale at the market, are protected from the rain

We went to the central post office to collect the PCV mail, it was closed and taped off to stop access. A new building is due to be completed in mid September at the Stade area (about a kilometre from the old site)

The graffiti artists have been let lose

Snippets

This week many of the staff have been setting off for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu on Tanna with boxes and bags of paperwork, and two printers. You may remember we went to Assembly last year on Santo and it was an amazing experience, but this year we can't go due to Martyn's broken leg. It would be just too difficult to get around in a village setting, also getting on and off trucks to get to the village from the airport.

Before: pre-Assembly organised chaos ready to be taken down to the ship sailing to Tanna (These before photos were actually taken last year but it looked just the same this year)

The big Riso (yes Riso, not Ricoh 😂) printer is going too in a box made specially to fit.

After: most people have left and the office is very quiet and empty.

Thank goodness we have Ethel. Without her Martyn would be house-bound unless some kind friend could take us out in their car/truck. This is the state of our road, completely impassable on crutches. Our gate is just to the right about where that lady is passing.

Martyn is able to do a few hours work each day. We found a very convenient office chair missing its back which serves perfectly as a roller stool to support Martyn's leg and fits neatly under his desktop. In many offices around the world, broken furniture would be disposed of, but not here 👍😉. I have to give Martyn an injection each morning of anti-clotting stuff for his blood - because he is not getting sufficient exercise there is a risk of blood clots. Sometimes it results in a nasty bruise, but my technique is getting better.

Pastor Jung of Presbyterian Church of Korea is adding some Chinese and Korean messages to Martyn's cast. The cast also has writing in English, Bislama, and Greek (courtesy of  John Redshaw) plus several pictures. It is looking grubby after just 2 weeks, what will it be like in another 4? 😱

It has been raining here for the last 3 days - makes getting around even harder than it already was, but where there's a will (or a rubbish bag in this case) there's a way. 

We have been watching a block of shops being built down near the central market with some interest as the protruding roof trusses seemed vary random, both in spacing and shape. However all is gradually becoming clear now that they have been framed up as gable ends with natangora roofing being installed. Looking forward to seeing it a bit more complete before we leave.

Down at the market, the firewood needs to be covered from the rain or there won't be any hot meals tonight!