The sudden realisation I'm back at work

Or: how it only took one week to drive me round the bend again

Spring has arrived in Portugal. Its sunny and warm outside (kind of - 15 during the day, Im still freezing at night and in the office). As proof these two are running around the back of our office eating anything within reach.

I can hear the "awwwwww's" from here. They're actually both evil. Between them they are completely killing what little work ethic there was around here. Not that motivation was helped by last week:

• Monday - looked at core from hole finished on Saturday again and realised Id ended hole in mineralisation. Also that they waited 8 hours on standby before I finished - ie if they'd drilled through night shift they would've come out of the zone. Then approved lab invoice only to realise next day they'd analysed for something we didnt ask for and therefore overcharged us.
• Tuesday - delete connection to mail server from outlook in morning almost breaking email. Not that I can connect to server using outlook anyway (since its in Perth) but is still nice for things like contacts. This is part of NEW REGIME where instead of web-based email I'm using outlook/POP and also using new extenal HDD instead of a very full & slow C:drive. But since laptop hasnt been reformatted yet Im still working from both drives which in the short terms is slower and will inevitably lead to data mis-matches and loss, making the new regime all the more difficult to implement. As it is now I hate Outlook 2003.
• Tuesday PM - join a gym. Entertaining going through all the "Do you drink? smoke? have a heart condition?" in another language. "How many coffees a week?" Ummmm. The gym guys here are disturbingly (and genuinely) friendly and always walk past and give a big thumbs up and a "great, keep going" or ask "everything good?". Which is really nice although I suspect an evil motive behind "now hold that for 20 seconds - its the best!" - its not as my abs bloody hurt after 10 .
• Wednesday - go out to see current status of diamond hole which will not end (actually ended yesterday after one blown motor, one blown repair job and 70m past planned depth). On way back get distracted so end up half in ditch - roads are a bit narrower compared to the Pilbara. Also theres more traffic so you cant drive down the middle of the road (well not as much). Would all have been OK except that as I realised where I was the road went over a little bridge with some nice brick edging. So wipe out bottom of car. Steering starts feeling a bit funny. This piece of metal may or may not have come from the bottom of the car (no way I'm saying more without lawyers). Of course I did an incident report/investigation....

• Thursday - find out have broken a steering bar on the car. Cost 350 euros. Not allowed by head fieldy to pay for it as we have to take car back to Lisbon/rental company to get it done. Instead I can lend drillers 450 euros so they can get a new fuel pump for their Land Rover as any money transfer wont get to their account til Monday.
• Friday - driller turns up at office asking for me to print an email from his office. The GNR (local cops) turn up on his heels. The email is the renewed insurance form for their car to replace the out of date version he gave the cops that morning. But they would also like to see his license, especially since they thought thats what he was going to get when he drove away from them...... So the fun starts. We go through "I don't have it on me", "its being renewed so its in the mail", "I didnt get given a temporary license" and "my old ones were stolen in Indo" (all this while refusing to budge from my office) and get to "Why do they want to see my passport?" Gee I wonder. Again no comment in case its used against me in a court of law.

That probably is a better answer for "Whats it like over there?" than the long and vague spiel I gave people in Perth. Did I mention the sun was shining and the lambs were frolicking?!