The library is looking good! The shelves all went in yesterday. Today I spent the morning unloading school (Mercy Ships Academy) furniture. The little chairs for the children are just so cute (and little!!!). We are already getting quite a collection of books (and I've probably already read a ton of them as that's one of my favorite pastimes!). It'll be a great place to relax and enjoy a good book! 
One of the things that I have grown to love here in England is SPRING TIME...the local councils take such great pride in their gardens. This is a beautiful garden that shows off how flowers grow so easily here in England.
After having just completed my Basic Safety Training, we soon had the arrival of our life raft. On our BST course, we used 12 person rafts. The one you see here is a 35 person raft. This will be of our safety equipment onboard the Africa Mercy. Just aft of the life raft, you will see the davits (painted white) that will hold one of our life boats. Much work has gone into this part of our ship by our own deck crew who are doing a great job!
I just spent a week getting training in Basic Safety Training (see several pictures below). This consisted of Fire Fighting - going into a container on fire, putting out different classes of fire, learning how to put on fire gear, etc. I learned that I hate things up around my face and neck, but fighting the fires was actually pretty cool! We also had a day learning first aid and cpr, then we moved on to Water Safety techniques - getting into these beautiful red gumby suits (see below!) - not my idea of being fashion-conscious, but it gets the job done! All in all, it was a great time of bonding for the 16 of us that participated. The Africa Mercy has to have a lot of us trained in this so I'm sure those of you are coming to join us will get your chance one day soon!
I have a whole new appreciation for my brother-in-law, Steve, the Fireman!! It may 'look cute' but once I got the mask on, I couldn't breathe!! Fire fighting is definitely not my 'cup of tea'
