Perseverance Pays Off

After several days of making cups of coffee in the world's oldest microwave and an unhygienic pot, the powers that be have seen it fit to purchase a new kettle. Well, when I say "purchase", it does look remarkably similar to the old one, albeit slightly cleaner. I had actually missed using a kettle in the office over the course of the past few days, so I was slightly wary of it when I switched it on first. When it boiled, I must confess, I did let out a small cry of delight that normal service was resumed.

It's just as well the kettle had been replaced, as the site was very quiet last night and only one taxi came back. At twenty past eleven. Unfortunately for me, however, they were very quiet and went straight to bed. Which left me wandering, aimlessly, around the site for a few hours. I was sorely tempted to sit in the office and boil the kettle repeatedly just for the want of something to do. Besides, there are only a limited amount of times you can read the newspaper. Even at that, I think I overdid it slightly after the fortieth time.

By around one o'clock, I was starting to get bored. I'd walked around the site several times, read the newspaper countless times, read a well known catalogue-shop's catalogue from cover to cover, as well as reading everything in the office. You'll never appreciate how quiet some nights can be until you find yourself reading the user manual for a petrol chainsaw at four in the morning. Although I did notice something written on the cover of a manual for a petrol strimmer. Someone, at some point, had written the date of purchase on the cover (25th June 1996) and written in the bottom right hand corner of the booklet, "Stolen: 19th Sept. 1996"

One other point I read. In the "staff handbook" circa. mid 90's it states: "The 'office' is used by both genders (if you are unsure what this means, ask the warden)" Did they really employ someone who was so dense they had to write that into the staff handbook? I guess I'll never know.