Real Airplanes!

I must say it is really nice to be working around real airplanes again. Today on the way back from work, two Hawks in formatino flew over me on final approach, probably no more than 20 ft above the car. Tomorrow is the big international airshow, so a lot of cool aircraft are showing up.

I am a bit further ahead with learning about my job, but a lot more to learn. It will probably be a few months before I am any use... it is a bit of a penalty off the start when you aren't even familiar with the rank structure.

We had a nice night tonight. Laura and I went downtown Falmouth (thanks Sally for babysitting!) and had a sit down in a nice place on the harbour. Very pretty tonight, and very calm. Big day tomorrow... we will do our best to buy a car. Right now it is either the Peaugot (pronounced purrrrrgeot here)370 or a Ford (yes a Ford, I know, found on road dead, ha ha) Galaxy. Maybe we will even pick up a toaster for good measure. Take care all. M.

First Day at Work

So today was my first day. I found out that I am the "Merlin Depth Officer", which as I found out, is a pretty complicated job. The Brits farmed out all the heavy (depth) maintenance to Augusta Westland (AW). So AW runs the maintenance show in terms of managing the maintenance processes, and they employ a 50/50 split of military and civilian technicians. This is where it gets a bit complicated (I will write again when I have it figured out, probably next year). I look after some parts of all military techs, but not all. I look after their welfare, excluding their day to day work (leave, hr problems, etc). Now there is another group of folks, called the Merlin IPT. These are the military engineers (like an AEO shop), so I am the link between them and AW. As well, there are operational engineers (like SAMAs for you AERE types), and again I am the link between them and AW. I also moniter everything to do with the contract and staffing, and that is about all I figured out today.

All of the Brits I met have been fantastic... very friendly. The weather has finally turned around here, so the everyone went to the beach today while I was at work. Still trying to find a minivan (MPV in England), and we have narrowed the search a bit. Laura's Mom is only here until the 11th, so we have to hurry a bit on that. Hope this finds you all well. M

Sunshine!

We decided to beat the rain and headed out to The Lizard (a small quaint town)today and saw the coastline of Lizard Point. Beautiful! We had oour first meal in a real english pub which is nothing like home...the food was fantastic..homemade roast beef, chutneys, chicken nuggets (sort of ) local cheeses and casks ales (of which I only tasted). The pubs only serve food during a short period of the day during meal times, but well worth it. Finding restaurants that accomodate children has been challenging but they were great. The rest of the day was spent TRYING to find a vehicle. Something we realized is not going to be easy. Because we need a vehicle to accomodate 3 cars seats and kid stuff, it limits us as all the cars are tiny. Late afternoon the sun came out and we took the kids to the park down the street. All the kids were a bit older, hopefully it isnt a trend. Good none the less to get the kids out. Mark starts work tomorrow, finally find out whats going on (hopefully!). Thats all for now!