Trickling On

Well, the days trickle by steadily and anonymously. 6pm to 6am nightshifts, sometimes with bursts of work, often with hours of online poker. Everything went tits up, not with our equipment, mercifully, but with a bunch of other stuff. Just as everything was in-hole and ready to go, it all went wrong, and the whole lot had to be pulled out again. The result being that the first of two tests has been abandoned, and by about Wednesday we should be ready to run back in for the second test. And so, aside from a few hours work tonight, the days ahead will be very quiet. Looks like I'll be losing a lot of money on the poker.

The good news - I think - is that I may be returning home by Thursday/Friday next week. This is due to some loosely adhered to rules about only being in the North Sea three weeks at a time, but some murmurs from base suggest that this could be the case. As I have holidays booked at the start of August, this either means: I joyously have all of July free and savour some much-needed time off; or I'm pumped straight onto some other damn job right up until the day of my holiday.

We'll see. For now, my focus is on the current passing of days, which promises to be gentle. There has been a shift in dynamic however: job leader, Mr Vinegar has been replaced by rival property tycoon Talisker. Mr Vinegar was as lethargic as me when starting this, still on the wind-down from the Herculean EG mission. But Talisker has arrived with sets of to-do lists and a can-do attitude. I'm not averse to the odd to-do list, but my can-do approach to them depends on time of day and how far away the next coffee break is (answer: not far).

I'm also in fierce competition with Talisker with regard to flat-owning. In my company there are a couple of guys with two flats, and one may have three, but both myself and Talisker are setting the pace with five. We both have a van too, though inside Talisker's van are a few Polish people and a tiling business, so he maybe wins on points.

I see more of the other two guys, with six hours a day apiece. Baracus continues to confound, entertain and infuriate. His Bollywood music, whether on computer on from his voice, has to be quelled immediately. I'm still recovering from his wedding slideshow.

And so it goes. Tonight I'll pressure up two carriers to 10,000 PSI, and if I survive will have the luxury of empty time for a few days. And hopefully, before my limbs atrophy and my wages disappear into poker oblivion, I can be set free and back into a world of wine binges and renewed insomnia.