Tuesday 20th April

I’ve been stewing over how to approach David in a positive manner, or rather in a manner that doesn’t entail shouting, throwing things and in general being in a bad mood. The garden clean up has now taken 4 days, the crew are finally clearing out the rubbish, and I presume they finished today. All in line with Davids “one thing at a time” approach. He’s had 9 people there now for 4 days, with at least half of them each day sitting around waiting for the others to finish something before he organises them to do their bit.

I’ve been trying to come up an analogy I can use to demonstrate what he does, in a way he can relate to, the best I’ve thought of so far is this.

He is organising a fishing trip with 4 other friends, David is the person in charge, Bartholomew owns a boat and lives by the sea, Christopher has a motor and a wheelbarrow, but he lives on the other side of the village. Jeremiah has fishing rods, lines, hooks etc, and lives near the centre of the village, and Salleh will bring an ice chest, and he lives on the opposite side of the village to Christopher.

David will have everyone meet at Bartholomews’ house, after he has sat and read the paper, talked to everyone, they will all then go to Christophers house to bring the motor in the wheelbarrow to the boat. They will all then go to Jeremiahs house, collect the fishing rods, lines etc, and return to Bartholomews. After which they will then all go to Sallehs to collect the ice chest.

By which time it will be midday, and they will stop for a lunch break.

I’m not saying my way would be any better, quicker or efficient, but I would have had everyone bring what was needed to Bartholomews in the morning, and we would have been out in the boat well before mid-morning.

Unfortunately, that is how he organises the work crew, it is everyone does one job together, whether or not it is required, or even if all of those people are able to work together without getting in each others way.

Plus I’m still a tad annoyed about him pulling another grass cutter apart and losing springs, bolts and washers on the ground. And stripping out the allen key heads on the gear box on the extension arm, by using the sparkplug star drive, then just knocking the gear box off with a hammer, which smashed the bearing in the case, and stripped the gears totally.

I’m going to write a bit more in here, then try to compose an Employee Performance Review for him, without losing my temper while writing it.

Tiff is finally getting to Brisbane tomorrow, provided the Australian High Comission process her visa application before 2pm. It’s been such stuffed up process, not just the visa, but everything associated with it, that to be honest, she really couldn’t care less now. Still she is going, so just being away from everything here may be a good break for her. She hasn’t much to do in Brisbane, buy a new laptop, maybe visit the suppliers, or just go sightseeing and visit her wantok. I hope she does get a good break from it.

Andrew is going to lose half his thumb, left hand, the bone is infected, they are trying to stabilise the infection, but this is the Solomons. I think they are going to amputate it later this week before gangrene sets in. At the moment the surgeons are talking about just below the knuckle, so he will still have a short stub to use. By the time he gets back to work, the nursery will be well underway with construction, and I’ll keep him with me for the nursery maintenace side of everything, plus working with Jennifer and Rose in the nursery side as well.

My Mum keeps on proving the specialists wrong, she is still managing most things, with home help from the Hospice now. Rose is there most nights, and days if needed as well, thanks Rose. Mum is on mainly liquids, her oesophagus is slowly blocking with cancer, but she still sounds chirpy on the phone. The morphine tends to disorientate her a bit, so she takes paracetamol mainly.

Places I should be, places I’m not, it’s no wonder I’m getting a bit short tempered at times.