We heard from Anne in China today.
It was some glitch with net overload at the hotel that caused the video link to drop on New Year's Day.
But the big news was that she's being promoted. Well temporarily at least.
The Delegation that Anne has been in China for has been paving the way for the Minister's visit in a few weeks to sign some multi billion trade deal.
The Head of Language Support for the Minister's visit broke her leg skiing over Christmas. She used to be one of Anne's lecturers at University, and as she knew Anne was already in China she recommended Anne to take her place.
It's a big step up for Anne. She's really excited about it - but rather nervous. She'll do good.
The Minister's visit isn't for another three weeks, so Anne is going to take a week's leave to visit one of her Uni friends in Taiwan. Then she'll fly over to Quanzhou to get everything prepped before the Minister and the rest of her team arrive.
Anne knows Quanzhou pretty well as she spent half of her placement year at Quanzhou Normal University.
It will be great for Anne if this promotion becomes permanent.
If she does well she might even be able to put a word in for Amy to get a film job in the Department's Communication Unit.
That would sure help with the Flight Credits.
As a freelancer Amy has to use her own credits to fly to assignments. I'm gifting her all the credits we earn from the tree planting but I really would like to save some so my wife can go to visit her folks in Chile. Valentina doesn't say but I know she really would like to get to see her parents again.
It's 14,000 Flight Credits for a standard price return ticket to Santiago. We just don't have enough money to buy a non-credit ticket - it's almost five times the price.
I better get planting!
The Patient Transport Unit called this evening.
Geoff who normally does the runs to the Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry has only got a category C car. Because of the heavy rain the last few days the PTU have upped the job to category A vehicles only.
My good old all wheel drive Cybertruck still fits the bill.
I don't like driving, especially when the roads might be flooded, but I'll earn 200 Care Credits for the trip and a juicy bit of mileage allowance.
The PTU hasn't said anything about autonomous driving yet but I am sure they will still need drivers for these trips - patient care and all that. I think it will be a good few years yet before CareDroids are good enough.
I only need another 3 months on the Auxiliary Patient Transport team and I'll be able to get one of the new model ExoSkels. My old one is getting a bit creaky.
You are only supposed to use the ExoSkels for patient lifting on these transport jobs but I find mine really useful for lugging bags of compost about the garden. I could never lift those these days without the ExoSkel.
I'd better turn in now. I've got to get up at 6 tomorrow morning to make it to Oswestry on time.
Night all.
