Thursday 28th November 2013

The beauty of our way of life out here is that by getting up early you get things done. For example our two and a half hour FGASA exam was completed in advance of breakfast.

As soon as the exam finished it was a quick thumb through the training manual to check some answers and then it was preparation for tomorrow’s assessment drive. It doesn’t matter how well I pass the theory, if I don’t nail the drive then I won’t qualify.

The first assessment drives came in the afternoon, there was definitely an air of excitement and people were in the truck a good 15 minutes before departure which is unheard of. It felt as if you were at a theatre waiting for the curtain to go up. I’m glad I was in the audience and not on stage this early on in the sequence.

My friend described it as doing stand up in front of your friends who’d heard all of your material before as well as one lone critic (the assessor) sat at the back.