Happy Easter

Happy Easter everybody. I hope everyone is having a delightful Easter, spent with friends and/or family. Of course, I hope you all take a moment during this special time to remember the real reason for Easter – that is, Jesus rolling a big chocolate egg down a hill, or something, for our sins.

For my sins, I’ve been on this rig since Tuesday. Me and bunch of big burly men. Seems to be a theme, doesn’t it? It happens to be the same rig I was on back in January, for my last time in Nigeria. However, it’s a little more comfortable this time round, as I have a room with a window, and the room is being shared with someone who is hardly ever there. In fact, I think he left the rig today, meaning that for the time being I have a room to myself – an incredibly rare thing on a rig. Last time I had to share with a flatulent, impatient colleague with an insane sleeping schedule that messed up my sleeping pattern royally, and took me over a week to eventually recover.

Anyway, this pleasant state of comfort – which I don’t expect to last – has been matched by the leisurely amount of work I’ve been doing. I got on the rig a couple of days earlier than usual, thus giving myself and my colleague this time a generous amount of time to get our tools set up, and an even more generous amount of time to sleep, drink coffee and watch football. Our tools were all run-in-hole today, and I can now look forward to a few days of absolutely no work whatsoever. Everything appears to be roughly on schedule, and if this is the case I can expect to be finished and off the rig in about ten days. Plunged into a Nigeria is the midst of elections.

The elections have been causing a little bit of strife actually; not so much so in Nigeria itself, but a great amount of concern has been shown on the rig because it might affect the helicopters. For at least four days there won’t be any helicopters to and from the rig, but rumours have been abound that this could be as much as fourteen days, and might include all domestic flights. However, most of these rumours have been perpetuated by a pessimistic Canadian (why doesn’t America just swallow up this nation and save everyone a lot of grief?) so I’m not expecting too many problems.

That’s my Easter in Nigeria then, following a Christmas in Nigeria. Truly a festive haven of a nation. I quite want to do something to celebrate this special day, but there’s no hills and, as far as I’ve seen, no chocolate eggs, so I’m just going to chuck some cake down the stairs instead.