MONDAY 20 NOVEMBER     RV1

Over 45 today, and there were oppressive storms late in the day.

A lot happened yesterday.

A man from the electricians had to make a special trip up from RV2, for a while, to sort out the Pod 2 rooms that had electrical issues and get them ready to occupy. It seemed that B, the man from that company who was normally here all the time, had taken it upon himself to take the weekend off, without telling anyone. The SPQ building in Pod 2 that had the problems had already had six hours of man time spent trying to sort it out and the problem was still not found.

After all that, Spotless decided to cancel the hand over ceremony and its forty guests. Good!

Someone got the Landcruiser tyres fixed yesterday.

The kitchen fence was finished and those men left.

The gym was declared set up and operational, but was missing two gym mats. So today I had to phone HO to find some and get them to us, somehow.

Spotless had occupation of the main part of the wet mess, but the roller door that would block off the bar counter when required was missing, and there was still some other work ongoing.

I ordered a roller blind thing from a company in Alice Springs.

From the quarry company I was told to order shingle stone – a 12 metre side tipper load – for “landscaping”.

One of the men had done a tip trip on Sunday.

A SPQ donga that was still at Fly Camp was moved to RV2. Down there, they also received 4 office modules and 2 kitchen modules.

Two of the company workers who had been based here were moved permanently to RV2.

I inducted 4 pool company men, here to install the pool, and a man here to install the TV system.

The kitchen compressor unit broke down again last night. The drinks display fridge in the wet mess was not working properly. There were just too many electricals related problems it seemed to me! The cooling man came and fixed the drinks fridge but said we needed yet another new kitchen compressor.  He was sure the repeated failures were due to power fluctuations.

John went to Hedland to return the light tower now that the cementers had finished doing the incidental paths. He also took in some of the semi’s tyres to be repaired.

The sewer company man was working on the sewer and water plants. He said they would train the Spotless managers in their workings. Why didn’t they do that in the first place?

A problem was emerging that some of the smoke alarms installed in the SPQ rooms were going off for no apparent reason. The heat? It was making the Spotless managers really cross.

John had an unusual and unforeseen job today, in amongst his two trips to Hedland. Last Thursday, when BB overnighted here, he nearly went through the base of the shower recess in his bathroom. He was not happy and ordered that every one be checked. So John and the Spotless second manager went round and checked them, by bouncing up and down in each shower. BB was a rather large man, but…… Of the 232 showers, 44 were lacking  bracing. BB was still running the show at RV2, so he got to deal with the manufacturers, about that, for which I was grateful.

I was starting to dream of having a cool – or cold – shower! No such animal in these parts.