Friday 20th November

Happy Birthday Stef.

Tiffany and I had another meeting with the Post Office this afternoon, and they have agreed to pay for the upgrade along Mendana Ave, outside the Post Office, we start on it about the 14th December, or maybe the week before depending on when they give us the 25% initial payment. Kennedy is there doing artwork inside, so I’ve got his carving ability to use for statues in the PO Gardens after we finish the road frontage. All up, we have nearly 4 months work full time there now once we start. It’s going to be a complete rip out and redesign and plant, which I’ve been dying to do since I arrived here.

Which means our compost making has got to increase, I’m going to need 8 truckloads just for the outside gardens, and at least 10 – 15 truckloads for inside the boundary fence, plus the carpark areas and border gardens. I have a letter to go to the ROC Trial farm, Tiff is taking it on Monday, and hopefully we can get a constant supply of rice husks and chaff, to add to the woodchip and chicken manure. Thankfully it rots quickly here, 2 weeks is more than enough time to go from raw to finished compost in the heat and humidity. I may need to find more chicken farms though, up till now it’s been bags at a time, we need truckloads now. It’s getting to be a bit like the King of the Golden River, we’ll take anyones waste and turn it into something useful.

To say I’m happy about getting the Post Office job is a bit of an understatement. It’s the first bit of good news Tiffany and I have had in a long while, and for it to be all Tiffanys work, without anyone else taking it over because it is far to complicated for her means a lot. I finally got her to do the 10% discount method, put a price, but add a 10% contingency price for unforseen expenditure, and offer to deduct it if they guarantee payment, in this case we got a 25% initial payment on commencement, and a final payment within 5 days of completion, so it’s a nice little earner for us. 2 weeks work and a good payment.

There’s going to be a few changes at work now though, I’ve been working on time sheets, job numbers or names, mileage recording on the trucks, so we can keep track of how much each job costs and also to some extent, where we can cut waste expenditure. Now we know we can get the work, the systems are ready to track everything finally. It is going to annoy someone who thinks it can’t be done by the natives, but I’m not here to be nice to the colonials. No matter who they are.

I’ve got drawings to do for the Japanese Consul, and the German Embassy, for the Nursery, before Monday, working plans for Commonwealth Ave to have done so we can get the costings completed for Ministry of Infrastructure and Development by Friday, so my weekend is looking rather full for once.

The accountant came back today and said he’d made a mistake, like we cared enough to worry, but he’d totalled everything wrong, and instead of losing $6,000 per month for the past 5 months, we’d lost $6,000 over the 5 months. So from $35,000 a month to just over $1,000 by cutting out all the community work is working, and once the new pricing Tiffany has done for all the jobs starts in January, we should be showing break even or a profit by March. It’s been a battle though, we’re still being told that we have to do the community work, and I’m still ignoring it. I’m tired of trying to explain that if we don’t get paid for doing something, the money has to come from somewhere to cover all the expenses, and if we have to do it, then there is no point in getting upset at running a loss every month if we aren’t allowed to charge for our time and expenses.