"it feels unreasonable of me to expect all of you currently 'on board' to remain so until we drop that final anchor."

Nigel, I was on-call for 15 years as a volunteer firefighter. Of the 8760 hours in a year I spent 2000 of them working at a job I couldn't leave. I also spent 500 hours out of the province or otherwise indisposed. That left 6260 hours when I answered the pager. I don't think keeping your daughter, your missus and you in my thoughts for however long you need it will be much of an inconvenience if you know what I mean. In the words of my grandmother, "Are you daft?"

Friendship doesn't look at clocks.