Listen to your inner voice......

Some days it pays to listen to that little voice in the back of your head. Miri, Sarawak, 0630, time to turn and burn then go over to the Shell base at Lutong, 10 miles away to collect our first loads. Three crews ready to go, except my head was saying, “Perhaps not.” 
The weather was the usual for a monsoon storm, or was it. The cloud base at Lutong was supposedly just acceptable, the visibility in heavy rain was also supposedly in limits, just. I told my friends I would hang fire for a while. They scoffed and disappeared into the gloom and as the ancient saying goes, “Kicked the tyres and lit the fires.” Five minutes later the first slightly panicky call of “Going around,” (overshooting) was heard, followed minutes later by a second urgent call of “Going around.” They ended up in Bandar Seri Begawen, the airport in Brunei, 80 miles away. I ended up in the crewroom cuddled up to a mug of tea. 

Years later I availed myself of the medic onboard a platform on the North Sea. I had been working under my ancient Landrover and a flake of rust dropped into my left eye, no safety glasses. The medics had a magic trick, they were used to such injuries; having shutdown and wandered below I was ushered onto the medic’s table, he produced a hypodermic syringe needle and a magnet. Using a large illuminated magnifying glass he loosened the flake of rust with the needle, then let the magnet do it’s job. A few rinses with eye wash and I was ready to go again. No charge, no pain, just trust in the medic’s skill. It’s quite unnerving watching a needle approach your eye.