Posted to Portland in Dorset on a magnetising job with my fellow Magneteer Kane, we stopped at a motorway service station. Burger King was selected - not by me - for lunch.

Lodged in Kane's bun was this small piece of what appeared to be spring steel. As I say, not my choice.

We're staying in a hotel only five minutes walk from the berth where the Havila Phoenix is moored. We'll be loading her with 200km of telecomms cable.

I've never been to this part of the world before - it's very picturesque; certainly when the sun's out. It might be a different story in horizontal snow and rain.

Before I left for Portland, I saw that there was going to be a maintenance problem with the heater matrix if it ever needed to be removed. I wouldn't be able to pull it out far enough to clear the firewall.

The solution would be to insert a recess in the driver's footwell so the matrix could be pushed back a couple of inches or so, without the in and outlet pipes fouling the structure.

I was rather pleased with my efforts. A couple of tacks on the inside held all the folds together and I'll pop it in place when I remove the scuttle for undercoating. There's still a lot to position - windscreen wiper motor and associated bits and pieces, dashboard clips, screen vents and so on.

I was intrigued by a small display of undersea cable sections sitting in the warehouse where we've set up our magnetising kit. This piece was dug up from the beach on the Isle of Wight. It was laid in 1907.

This is a piece of a type that used to span the Atlantic.

A more modern example. These are very small compared to the windfarm cables that we usually attend to and which we often magnetise off the back of the boat.

This is an export cable - the one that runs from the offshore substation to the onshore station. I think we'd stopped to sit it out at this point as things were getting a bit lively.

Ports are places where you need to be alert, danger lurks at every turn. Even the pavements which you would expect to be relatively safe havens, are a trap for the unwary. If you don't follow the rules, expect to get splatted!