Storms at the house

We had storms in the house last night. I don't call the place home. It is not a happy house like the cottage was. Mum and Gilly were arguing about mum not letting Gilly go out with Bill last night. My dear sister tried to involve me in the argument seeing how Bill is one of my best mates, but no way am I getting between her and mum. I hid in my bedroom and played Thorn World and chatted on line to Barry and Deepa.

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Not so good at home

Things are looking a bit bad for Dad. The Garden Centre has lost business over the past few months and the owners are thinking about cutting staff. He may get made redundant and he's worried. He's not saying anything at home but I can tell that he's worried. He's over 40 and round here might find it difficult to get another job. Money isn't a problem because he owns the cottage (when it is finished) and I can help out from my funds. I think he will have real problems not having a job and meeting with people all day. I saw on the TV news that the recession has ended in the UK. Maybe the owners of the Garden Centre will be patient for a bit longer and wait to see if things pick up. Dad has worked for them for many years. 

They are good people, they even took him back after he'd been arrested when the Drug Gang set him up.

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Secret Stuff

I had to go down to the building site after School. The Moles wanted to demonstrate the escape tunnel to me. They’ve fitted it out fully and fixed the security doors at each end. It is pretty much automated and is activated by Foundation Ring, though I’ll have a personal override code as well. With the lighting installed it is not so scary. You just lie on the trolley, push a button and it whizzes you to the other end. The escape hatch is really clever and quite hidden. The other guys at school would love it, but I’m not allowed to let them in there.
They showed me how the pumps worked if any water gets into the tunnel. There's even a standby battery system.

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National Id Cards

Oh whoopee doo the UK Government is inviting youth around London (16 -24) to pay £30 to have a National Identity Card and thus include yourself on their central database. No Way! Once you have one of those cards you have to keep the Government informed, for the rest of your life, of where you are living or face £1000 fines.

My grandfather told me what life was like when he was young. They had much more freedom from State intrusion then. There is way too much Government nosiness going on. Have a look at this website to find out more.

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Helping out and routine

I was able to help out with the earthquake appeal - though it was just working the phones in an office ringing people and getting them to contribute. It was another Company's turn this weekend to help at the logistics centre. The Foundation Cadet meeting was kinda focussed to how to set up field camps, kitchens, showers and latrines. We've already done the stuff on camp kitchens and how to make things like boilers from old oil drums, but it was good to go through it again. The controlling crowds bit was kind of eerie and makes you wonder what London would be like if there was an earthquake here. Our leaders are really convinced that the Armed Forces are no longer large enough to take control if there was a major disaster in this country.

Back to boring old school today and reality, though I've got to go to the cottage this afternoon with mum and check what the builders are doing with the the electricity cabling and water pipes. They are going to be installing air heat exchangers soon. All the stale air from the cottage will be filtered and have the heat removed for recycling in the winter. In the summer the air will be cooled through heat exchangers. The Moles say that in an emergency the cottage will resist a gas attack and stuff like radioactive dust/biological agents. The underground water tank used as a heat store can double to hold 20,000 litres of water.

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Avatar tonight

A quiet Saturday at last though I’m going to watch Avatar with Sally, Deepa, Simon and Darren this evening. Mom has gone shopping, Gilly is out with Bill and Dad is at work. No rugby team fixtures this weekend either. I’ll be down at the cottage site this morning checking out the building progress. The walls have now been poured and we have a first floor in place. By the time they have added the syntactic foam and stuff the walls will be about 60 cm thick. It is just a bit thicker than the old cottage so no one will notice, but it is like near perfect insulation. The builders are going to install the under floor heating pipes next week and the roof will be fixed too. That will have foam and stuff too to stop any bad stuff coming through the roof.

I’ll be really glad to get out of this temporary house. It just doesn’t feel like home.

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Back to normal

At long last the builders have restarted work on the cottage. They should have been there last week but all the snow made it a bit pointless. We checked the escape tunnel and that has stayed dry and undamaged. Also there was no water in the secure rooms. They will be pouring the walls and installing the metal shielding for the rest of the cottage this week. Then the roof goes on and it will be properly watertight. They are a couple of weeks behind schedule but we planned for that.

Meanwhile I’m at school doing stupid mock exams instead of being taught any interesting new stuff. It all seems such as waste of time but School Performance lists rule ok?  Not! I could use my time better helping with the Earthquake Relief. I did get to drive a forklift truck. Random!

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Shattered

I've been working hard all night while we get the supplies ready for loading on to the plane. I can see a point to all the training now. I want to go out and help on the ground, but the command team say I'm more useful here getting things organised. I saw real body bags for the first time. We loaded 1000 of them. Amazing how important water tanks and toilets will be out there. You forget about that kind of thing in comfortable UK.

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Earthquake

It’s going to be a busy weekend. I’ve been called in by the Foundation to run a call centre for the disaster recovery planning following the earthquake. We are using our phone system and vehicles to help coordinate supplies. We are sending the lighter stuff by air, but also seeing what we can buy locally. I can see that my black credit card is going to be busy. This my first duty call as a Captain. Spooky that I’ll be telling men and women to do things.
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Holidays are too short

Back to school tomorrow. Some of my Twitter friends tell me that they are already back at school. Going over to Ali's this morning. I didn't get to see much of him over the holidays. He wants me to tell him all about the expedition to Snowdon for the training session. I know he'd love to try these types of things but he is too young really and his blindness would mean that we need to have at least one person looking out for him, though it's no real barrier. I'm going over to Deepa's in the afternoon. Her mom will be around so I guess it will be "on best behaviour" all of the time. Then tonight I've got a meeting with Dad and the builders for the cottage. They want to check out the plans. They seem to want me involved, but I guess that down to my role in the Foundation. I don't know where the meeting will be.

I'm supposed to be "babysitting" Gilly because Mom & Dad are out. She doesn't need it really. Anyway she can get Bill to come round and look after her. [snigger]

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Winter Training

The call to go on survival training with the cadets was unexpected but it was really worth going on the trip. There were squads from 5 counties spread over a couple of mountains using different techniques. We did snow caves in the few places where the snow was deep enough. It took ages to dig the caves and it was really hard work. We got quite hot digging, even though the wind chill was around minus 20 degrees. Quite a cold night in the snow cave, but the sleeping mats and down sleeping bags kept us quite warm.

We watched a real life rescue with a helicopter in the Devil’s Kitchen near the Ogwen Valley. Somebody had fallen down the gulley while snow climbing. I heard later they were ok but had broken a leg.
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