So I have made it safely back to London and have been reunited with my wonderfully pregnant wife!! We have two due dates the first was today, with only a few more hours in the day to go there is a nominal chance it can still happen, most likely the baby should come in a weeks time, probably longer considering both Maxine and I had to be induced because we were obviously much too comfortable and lazy too come out on time. The baby is very active, it seemed to have migrated south and is hopefully engaging itself and getting ready for the passage. For those of you who don't know we are keeping the sex a surprise for ourselves but we both think its a boy. If its a boy the name will be, Ozias Sydney Storm Denton, and if it is a girl, Lilliana Kaia Sydney Denton.
Our dilemma in life at the moment is where to live??? It will either be back in Virginia Beach where I have a secure but sometimes slow job, or do my best here in the U.K. keeping myself busy as a self employed "civils" diver. Last week I got my first taste of work experience in the U.K. working for a company called R.E.D.S., it was a very easy job and after the work I've done back in Norfolk for the Navy, most any diving job I take will be exceedingly effortless. On Wednesday I have a job lined up with Dive Tech doing god knows what.
Today I had an awesome job interview at Pinewood Studios www.pinewoodgroup.com/. Pinewood Studios is the equivalent of Universal Studios or any of those big movie studios in Hollywood except its over here in England and is called pinewood instead of Hollywood. Not sure how I got the job, Maxine found the diving website for the underwater studio and had a gut feeling that it would be a perfect job for me after my usual procrastination I phoned them and sent them my resume, went in for an interview and presto, I've got a job!!! I start next week, its not 9 to 5 Monday through Friday but its as close as you can get here in the U.K. as an inshore commercial diver, to fill in the gaps I will be a freelance diver doing jobs all over the country on an as needed basis. I'm really looking forward to starting work at Pinewood, my boss is super laid back, the jobs are typically bad ass, usually they are filming two to three days a week, and as my future boss said its a very "rock n roll" job. We do everything from building the set underwater to teaching the actors how to dive/swim/free dive/snorkel etc, and we get to test out all the special effects... The other side of the job is acting as a standby diver in case the actor get themselves into a hairy situation. A good example: Madonna's doing a music video and has to walk across a bridge, so there needs to be a standby diver ready to jump in and save her life should she decide to jump off and go for a swim. Sometimes we get to take pictures and shoot video but that's only on rare occasions and they are surely not going to let me the new guy do it, its like any other industry you have to work your way up the ladder. It was a very impressive and surreal experience getting the grand tour of the studios, I got to look at real live movie sets, it was very cool.
We will see how it goes, from what I've experienced so far I'm guessing we will most likely settle down here in England for the next year. We will be making are minds up one way or another in the next few weeks. Regardless, once Spring rolls around I am going to try my damnedest to get a job offshore where apparently they are crying out for divers. I'm confident I will get a job as my qualifications make me highly employable. The reason I'm waiting for Spring is because there is no diving operations in the winter in the North Sea as the infamous north Atlantic storms constantly barrage the oil rigs and the 100 foot waves make the conditions less then ideal. The other reason of course is my newborn baby whom I don't want to be away from in the first few months or at all, but all things considered me working offshore is definitely the best option for my soon to be family as a whole.
My next post will be put up after my baby is born I will be sure to include loads of pictures! Hope all is well with everyone!!!
Cheers,
Fontaine Denton
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