My Falklands Diary.

[Alex]

Just over two years ago I was sent out to defend some islands in the middle of nowhere that no one in their right minds would ever want, much less fight a war over. Anyway, as I would find out a few months after I got back I did the whole thing with a case of severe depression running in the background, despite which I managed to sort of have not an entirely terrible time. These diary entries started as facebook posts to let the family know how I was doing without having to contact everyone individually (which would have been impossible), but people seemed to like them and they ended up growing in size.

Here is my diary of that time... Best of luck to anyone who decides to read through the whole damn thing.

Day 1: Arrived after 18 hours of flying, and five hours of driving. It was only supposed to take an hour and a half but the hire car had no sat nav so I ended up taking a scenic route. They fed us constantly on the flight, although Delta's pasta choice is no longer the worst airline food I've ever had (always take the chicken). Ascension was very hot and wet, but we were only there for less than an hour.
Joe met me when I landed and went straight to work to start the handover. After being awake for 32 (or 36 if you ignore time zones) hours straight I am not convinced I took in everything he was saying. All I wanted to do was go have a shower. The guys I am working with seem a good bunch. It may have been a bad idea to go out drinking with them on the first night, but I figured I should make an effort and socialise. I didn't see any of... Them yet, but I know they are out there just waiting... Got to quickly Skype Kristi and let her know I had arrived. Our rooms are larger than expected, although cupboard space is limited even in a three-man room with only two people in it. Took about an hour just to get my bags. All the time the police drugs dog was running around sniffing everyone’s bags. I was convinced it was going to cock its leg against someone’s stuff.

Day 2: Joe is gone. They told us he got his flight back home, but we know the truth. It was Them. Damn Them and their acromaticness. He was there when we went to work and vanished by the time we got back. First day of work went as well as these things ever do.

Day 3: Working a Saturday feels very unnatural, even if it is only half a day. Spoke with some of my work mates about arranging some days away. Only one of them (Gaz) has been here for more than a month so they are all up for doing some sightseeing. Still not seen any of Them, but pictures of Them are everywhere. Went to the two shops on camp today. One has no stock, and the other is... expensive. They had one bottle of Irn Bru though. I decided to ignore my usual rule of not paying more than £1 for a bottle and got it. After work the guys in my office went to one of the cafe's for a drink and a cake. Went out for another couple of beers, but I declined the invite to sit up all night to watch F1 and left early. Having problems adjusting to the rule about wearing head dress inside. The army were apparently not acknowledging officers when they passed them in the Spinal Corridor so now we have to wear hats indoor and salute them, but wearing them inside feels like poor manners to me.

Day 4: Spent the day sorting out my stuff I'd unpacked. We did have plans to go out for a drive to see more of the island but the first snow of the year stopped that. Ended up going out for just a couple of beers. We went to the junior ranks bar, The Dolphin. Not many people were in it, and given the ear splitting volume they were playing the music in I can understand that.

Day 5: Got asked if I fancied a helicopter trip on Wednesday. Said yes before they'd even told us where it was going. Had a couple of beers to welcome another new guy, Loz. He is going to be my room-mate for the rest of my tour.

Day 6: Gaz is gone too now. Damn those penguins, damn them all ta hel*! Officially arrived on camp. The band of the Royal Marines was playing but having been drinking for the past several nights I decided to skip this one. The bars I’ve found here so far are The Dolphin which is nice, but normally empty, The Gull & Penguin (commonly referred to as the Gull & Flick knife, due to the army liking fighting in it), Timmys’ which is our section bar and in dire need of some TLC, Cats & Rats (the Catering and Rations sqn bar which is tiny and Brintels which is an invite only place.
*That would be the pagan Hel, not the christian Hell.

Day 7: The helicopter trip was to a memorial to where an F4 (Phantom) had crashed back in the 80s. We cleaned it up, although we didn't find the nearby crash site. Keep meaning to watch when I flush a toilet to see if the water rotates around the other way, but keep forgetting. The landscape I’ve seen so far strikes me as not being very colourful. All the plant life is brown, although some of it is light brown and some of it is dark. This is only broken up by the occasional grey rock. You’ll be wandering over a remote hillside and you just come across these rocks. The best way of describing them is like a river only of boulders rather than water. As someone who likes wandering around hills I was expecting to enjoy the wilds more, but it is like hill walking in Scotland with all the colours drained from the scenery. Still if I was ever going to make a film of Wuthering Heights or The Hound of the Baskervilles this is where I’d film it. Everything is bleak looking but dramatic. Still it is nice to be in the middle of nowhere and not be able to see another person or even a sign of habitation. If I ever come back here maybe I’ll sneak some heather down and plant it here to give the place a bit more character (please note that introducing non-native plants and or creatures to anywhere is highly irresponsible and shouldn’t be carried out as it leads to unintended consequences).

Day 8: The total lack of calendars around here is making keeping track of the date irritating. Work was fairly busy. This is a good thing as the days pass faster. Have been feeling a bit sick since I arrived here, not actually thrown up but feeling like I really wanted to, so went to the doctors (well our SNCO, Lars ordered me to go). He signed me off SIQ for 2 days. The medic did want to sign me off for the rest of the week, but I persuaded him I had things I needed to do at work on Saturday.

Day 9: Spent the day in my PJ's (well ok Muppet lounge pants). Saw my first bit of wildlife. Looked a lot like a seagull, only with black and white plumage.... or possibly a penguin in disguise. Must keep my guard up there. Went to the shop. I guess it must have been a while since the last supply ship as all they had were copious amounts of Pringles and Barr's Ginger Beer. Oh, and a copy of Razzle which we think has been there since the 80's. Felt better in the morning but started to feel sick again after lunch. Either it’s some bug that everyone gets when they first arrive, or its the food (which seems to be generally good), although I am supposed to avoid fatty food and dairy. Have these people ever ate in a mess? I think that leaves me the option of dry white toast.

Day 10: Had a mornings training with my platoon. I'm a section commander, as is my new roommate (Loz). Our chief at work in the 2 I/C of our platoon. We have a young looking army captain as the boss. He appears to be very keen... This is going to be a long winter.
Feeling fine today.

Day 11: Since the room didn't look like it had been cleaned for... well possibly ever me and Loz got stuck into it and gave it a good cleaning. We'd have hoovered it up, but discovered we'd have to clean the hoover out first. Now the filter isn't a solid mass of dust we just need to wait on it drying out (we had to put some parts through the washing machine to clean them out). Went down to the gym. Most of the machines were taken, so I went on a running machine. Managed a half hour run, although my feet were rather tender afterwards, but if you don't keep going through the pain then plantar fasciitis will just get worse.

Day 12: New carpets are being laid in some of the offices, so we ended up doing a lot of furniture moving around today. Lots of it is in a shocking state and falls apart when touched.  Went to the West Store and got some more Irn Bru although I am rationing myself to one cup of it per day.

Day 13: Drove one of the land rovers down here for the first time. Took a bit of getting used to driving with boots on, but I have all the stuff required for anything that requires me to be outdoors overnight should I break down. The speed limit on the island is 40mph, and the (I will be generous and call them towns) range from 10 to 25 miles an hour. Possibly on the basis that if you are driving any faster and you blink you will miss that you’ve passed through one.

Day 14: We can tell winter is on the way. Definite chill in the air in the mornings. The days are pretty short which is annoying since they were just starting to get to a decent length back home. We can expect 4 to 6 hours of day light over the winter months, most of which we will miss thanks to being in an office with no windows to the outside. Must see about picking up some vitamin D supplements.

Day 15: More theatre reserve training. Our platoon has its rotation starting next. Guess I'll meet my squad then. Most of our lessons where given to us by a Ghurkha which was great except we had problems understanding him, although to be fair his english is a lot better than my Nepalese. Had a long lunch and early finish. I have created a monster in showing Loz ‘The Walking Dead’ on Friday. It’s now the following Wednesday and he has just started season 4. The police came down to chat with us, and coincidently let the sniffer dog run around. No one got picked out by it though.

Day 16: More training, although it was from different people. Another long lunch time (Loz managed to get another episode of TWD in) and that's me now fully qualified to deal with whatever the south Atlantic throws at us apparently be it an invasion, underground peat fires, aircraft crashes, ships sinking or what not. Saw a pub quiz (in The Dolphin) being advertised for the 17th so going to see if I can get a team together for it and see how we do against the army.

Day 17: Loz saw the same penguin that was cunningly disguising itself as a seagull. Also saw some turkey buzzards sunning themselves on the roof. Well on Ryan's roof. I have been pointing out to him that having something that is basically a vulture flying around his head does not bode well for his future. Poor boy is trying to lose weight and does do a lot of exercise to try and lose it, but he snacks a lot at night and I am pretty sure he is gaining weight instead.

Day 18: Started TR today. Got my squads details in case of a callout. Told them they have a week to collect all their required gear. Since we have an army guy in charge he won't have quite the same attitude RAF guys are used to if they are short of gear. Went to get a pizza, the wait was well over 90 minutes, but got there in the end. Some of the lads had a beer while we waited. The 12” pizzas are fine but the 9” ones are soaked in grease.
Timmy's bar has been a bit run down over the years so we've (as in the guys in our office/ corridor decided to restore some RAF traditions. We are going to fix up the bar, including Timmy's bell and the Wheel of Misfortune. Rather politically incorrect, but we decided screw that. Went up there out of work hours to fix it up, trying to get it all back in action for Saturday night. We didn't manage to fix much but we did check that the beer supplies worked fine, and I learned how to operate the DJ system. Although there was only 5 of us up there we had a very good night. Took some videos of what happened when I put on some 80's classics like 'Flashdance' and just for Cath I got some guys dancing to MC Hammer. Back in the block now and Loz is watching The Walking Dead. Wishing I could phone Kristi just to hear her voice, but it’s about 03:37 UK time so I'll just let her sleep.

Day 19: When some girls heard I was in charge of batteries they said they'd do anything I wanted if I could get them some.
None of them could make me cheese and toast though so no deal.

Day 20: Wind is getting up upside and its getting colder. We have the world’s longest covered walkway here which keeps the worst of the weather off us, but it still gets pretty damn cold. Loz went into Stanley today. I asked him to pick me up some fresh fruit as I have seen none since I got here. A bunch of bananas and a couple of apples seem like such a luxury right now. The supply ship came in a few days ago but not seen any new stuff down the shops.

Day 21: A new system has been brought into the office. We now do less work than before and make the supplier do the job he is supposed to do. He was complaining that all his job is, is booking stuff in and booking it out with putting things on shelves in between. I asked him what the hell he expected to be doing when he joined up as a supplier (or as we call them Stacker or Blanket Stacker).

Day 23: Went to see 10 Cloverfield Lane tonight. I enjoyed it although opinions were mixed on it. The whole office went done including Lars.

Day 24: Saw what is supposed to be a Turkey Vulture today. It was sitting on the roof of our mess. I do not consider this to be a good sign. Mind you, it wouldn’t surprise me if it ended up on our dinner plates.

Day 25: Timmy's grand reopening was today. Also my birthday. I got rather drunk and have no idea how I got home, although apparently everyone got to see my thousand-yard stare when he (Loz) dropped a beer and soaked my trouser leg. Everyone was rather upset about me not having a hangover the next day. If they are expecting me to have them they are going to be very disappointed for the next six months as I’ve decided I am not having them any more. We sold about 1200 cans of beer and ran out of most types of alcohol. The bar was running between 80% to 100% capacity all night long and lots of people had to be turned away.

Day 27: After two nights of solid drinking everyone else seems a bit shabby today. Funnily enough I feel fine and treated everyone to some rousing Brazilian Death Metal. Can’t beat a bit of Sepultura when everyone else feels hung over.

Day 28: A long day in work with not a lot on. Spent the morning cleaning up the bar after Saturday's carnage. The floor in Timmys’ has just been redone at a cost of 2 grand and once it was done there was an argument over who was going to actually pay for it, so the bar might end up being bankrupt. Looking forward to getting out tomorrow and seeing more of the place.

Day 29: Went on a walk to Mt Longdon to see where 4 para had assaulted the Argentine positions after they invaded. We walked about 10km at the start of the winter down here. I can't imagine marching 50km cross country to get here carrying 120 pounds of equipment on your back in the dark and then having to fight a battle especially when the enemy has night vision gear and you don't. Took lots of photos which I will upload when I have more internet time and explain some of the stories behind them. Still to see any different colours.

Day 30: Today was very frustrating and I spent a lot of it being pretty grumpy. Had lots of work on and kept on getting other random jobs to do. Mostly car related. Had to go get the wing commanders car given its weekly cleaning. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, although I was wearing my winter boots. It was hard to tell when my foot was on the break so gently slowing down to turn a corner tended to end up with the car slamming to a halt. By the time I got to MT there was a long queue of traffic behind me. Quite far behind.

Day 31: My part in deterring aggression against our south Atlantic territories consisted of cleaning all the dead flies out of a strip light cover. Also got to clean up some more mouse poop. Still not as bad as the jobs my room-mate has been getting. He has ended up with the nickname 'Loz "s**t Jobs" Roberts'. Considering the mouse poop, I feel lucky to have avoided that one. Which in turn is still better than the nickname Elle gave Ryan after seeing his scary face (Rapey Ryan). Went to the shop and picked up some Fly Paper in the hope of avoiding having to clean out the light cover in the future. I noticed there was only two bottles of non-diet Irn Bru on the island. Was very tempted to pick both of them up for myself, but thought doing that would earn me the instant hate of all the other Scotsmen on the island. Really enjoyed watching the sun rise as I walked back to work carrying my two bottles of Irn Bru.
Not sure if I have added a day or two to my count by accident. Or possibly lost some. It’s hard to keep track. Did see what looked like sheep today while driving around. Pretty sure they were really Them in disguise.

Day 32: Did a non-verbal communication course today. Everyone sat around looking at each other and not saying anything.
Was invited to the sgts mess tonight, but since I didn’t bring a shirt, tie or dress shoes decided not to go. About midnight Ryan chapped on my door to warn me Loz was totally paraletic and out of control. He’d been loudly abusing all the section management from the flight sergeant all the way up the wing commander. When Loz staggered in he was bouncing off the walls and falling over a lot. I helped him get into his bed after he fell over the couch and looking at him figured that there was a good chance he’d be sick in his sleep, so decided to sit up all night and make sure he was ok. After half an hour or so I heard him making strange noises and went over to check on him. Sure enough he was choking on his own vomit. Got him up and being sick in the waste paper bin, although not before he’d been sick all over himself and his bed. When he finished I dragged him down to the shower at the end of our corridor and threw him in. He even managed to get it on the backs of his shoulders which I couldn’t but help be impressed by. When he got back in the room I tried to get him to get in the spare bed but he was determined to sleep in his own. The rest of the night followed this pattern, Loz being sick and choking, getting cleaned up and then climbing back into his puke filled bed. He so owes me for this. Every time he was sick I was getting splashback.
Day 33: Another Saturday morning. Went to do the PAT (portable appliance testing) for the building today, but every class 1 item I tested failed. Class 2 (double insulated) all passed. Either the test set is broken or I am doing something wrong. Got asked if I wanted to go to San Carlos for the commemoration of the liberation force landing. The other option was to spend the whole day checking the runway for any rubbish on it. The story about Loz last night has spread quite quickly and gotten larger in the telling. Apparently he was very funny last night when he was abusing everyone.
There was a craft fair today. It... failed to live up to my (low) expectations. I nicknamed the nearest shop as the Wondrous Emporium of Disappointment as it only has stock for about 3 days after the supply ship arrives then nothing for the rest of the month. Apparently it has now opened up a franchise. Several parties on tonight that I've been invited to, one in a PJ party the other a school disco. Going to try and not drink tonight, but we will see what happens. Over a month I've been here now and still not seen any of Them! But I know they are out there waiting. In the mist.
Day 34: Weather continues to be foggy with some variation for rain and / or wind. Occasionally we get snow, but I am sure we will see a lot more of that as winter down here really hits. Got Ryan's marathon charity swim thing next week. Thought I was going to get a flight sorted in a herc, but it’s a bit broken at the moment so that will have to be rescheduled. The big bird of freedom was sitting on the runway with the steps at it and no one else around. Wondered what my chances would be of sneaking back to the UK for a decent cheeseburger followed by cheese and toast then getting back before anyone noticed.

Day 35: Decided to get a tattoo of a mystery novel done all over my back. All except for the page where they reveal who done it. Also thought about buying copies of lots of paintings where peoples stare follows you around the room. I figure if I post them all over her walls while she is out I can really freak out Kellie. Went to Area 51 for the first time today and used the Skype machines down there. Managed to get almost a whole uninterrupted 30-minute call to Kristi (the net only dropped out twice). Had to drop out the video though. Every time we have a chat without video I assume she is wriggling her toes at me to torment me at not being able to tickle them. I am carefully keeping a count of how many times she does this so I can get my revenge when I get back.

Day 36: Went driving again in the Land Rover. Ryan reckons I am vastly improving. When I went to park up (all our vehicles have to be reverse parked), there were three empty spaces. Ryan said "See, when you first arrived you'd have went for the middle parking space rather than parking up beside another car." I dryly pointed out to him I'd been aiming for the middle space. I was deep in thought at lunch time. Ali enquired what I was thinking about. Told him I was pondering ways to counter things moving around once you bury them in the peatland (which is a major problem with the mine fields the Argentines placed here when they invaded. Inconsiderate buggers didn't remove them when they got kicked off the islands) in case I needed to bury a body. The Star Wars air freshener Kristi sent over is proving popular. It found its way into the Land Rover we use and now whenever we go to drive somewhere someone will ask where is the Wookie, then when it gets turned around so they can see it everyone does Wookie growls.
Lars asked if I could get one for the seniors Land Rover. Occurred to me that I should do a cast list of the people I work with so anyone reading these posts knows who I am talking about.
Fish: Our chief. If you've ever seen a picture of Mussolini with the giant head, that’s pretty much Fish. Plays rugby and lifts a lot of weights.
Lars: The sergeant in charge of TMEC so my immediate boss.
Ali: Fellow cpl in TMEC. Shares a room with Ryan next door to us. Part of the Anti-Disney club.
Ryan: Fellow cpl in TMEC. Likes to swim a lot and has a head like a potato. Suspect he has ancestors from Innsmouth for any HP Lovecraft fans out there. Nicknamed 'Rapey', by Elle because of a look he gave his meal one night in the mess. Part of the Anti-Disney club.
Matt: SAC admin for our section. As normally adminers are female he has a single room across the corridor from us, which is currently plastered in protein after her got drunk and kicked his muscle building stuff all over his room. Filmed himself cleaning his balls with Loz's toothbrush then showed him the video a couple of weeks later. Also has a habit of peeing on Loz in the shower. Not unusual behaviour in a rugby player though. Part of the Disney club.
Loz: Fellow cpl who does... Well I am sure he has a job he is supposed to do, but he spends all his time doing really crappy jobs to the point where is nicked named 's**t Jobs' Roberts. I suspect this may be connected to his mocking the Wing Commander, Sqn Ldr, Flight Lieutenant, Warrant Officer & Flight Sergeant at a recent all ranks mixer while very, very drunk indeed.
Elle: Fellow cpl and the only female in the entire building. Lone photographer in the entire camp and possibly the busiest person down here. I do not trust her due to her collection of stuffed Thems. She claims they are presents for her daughter which sounds totally implausible to me. Part of the Disney club. Stays in the sgts mess as her post is supposed to have a sergeant in it.

Day 37: Finally got some extra driving practise from MT. The sergeant ended up having to take me out herself as her cpls are always busy. Turns out she is at Lossiemouth too. Apparently I tense up when I am taking junctions. I figure if I am going to hit anything, that’s where it is most likely to happen. Anyway, she was happy that I'd improved by the end of the lesson. I think one of the biggest problems is the boots. I can't feel how much pressure I am putting on the brake until the car slams to a halt. Other drivers find this disconcerting.

Day 38: This Lars last week before his two weeks R&R. Looks like we are going to be losing that even on 6 month tours. Ouch. Elle has been making a book for her daughter. She has a stuffed Them that she takes with her anytime she goes somewhere new and takes photos of it. The book starts off with the Queen of the Thems asking her to look after one of her babies. Quite she thinks giving her child a book filled with photographs of a vicious killer beast I do not know, but I wholeheartedly approve.

Day 39: Early start this morning, up at 5AM (yes Stewart it is a real time and it does exist :P ), and down the pool for 6AM. We picked up some supplies from CATS & RATS (catering & rations sqn) to keep everyone hydrated and energised. Ryan managed to swim 15km (roughly 10 miles I guess) and in total we had about 38 swimmers who did a total of 124km (almost twice what we'd asked for). Raised £453.02 so far with more money still due to come in. Afterwards we went for a couple of beers and pizza. Ryan only stayed for one then wobbled off home. Me and Ali had a couple more. I owned up to having taken revenge on Loz's behalf on Matt for the whole toothbrush incident. Matt was silly enough to come in to the shower room the day after I'd found out what he did and leave his toiletries on the shelf while he went down the corridor to the toilet. Thing is, if I am taking revenge on someone I think you need to step things up slightly from the original act. Still, Loz is going to have to sort out his revenge for Matt peeing on him in the shower all on his own. I am not going there! There are good reasons I keep my lockers padlocked. Not sure why Loz doesn't.

Day 40: With our flight sergeant away at the moment, another flight sgt I know from Lossiemouth is in charge of us. He isn't proving popular and has earned the nickname 'The Morale Sponge'. Still, it’s only for another week. First day without Lars in the office. Went to the West Store for hoagies (so far we have Pop Tart Wednesday and Hoagie Friday). Suggested the next time no one in the office is on theatre reserve we grab one of the Bimble Wagons (cars that are available from work for recreational use) and head into Stanley after work on the Saturday for a meal. Had another driving lesson today. Sarah was much happier with my junctions. Looked at my chuff chart today, 20% of my tour done apparently. Also my count down timer says I have 2600 days left in the RAF.

Day 41: FOD plod today where everyone goes for a walk outside and picks up litter. We done from the edge of camp to the end of the runway. We were walking into the prevailing wind. This is the kind of logic the military runs on in a daily basis. For anyone who can't figure out why that is a strange thing it means any litter we picked up had already had been blown past the danger area.
Loz was in the shower and washing his hair, so had his eyes closed to stop shampoo getting in his eyes. He opened them to find Matt peering around the edge of shower curtain furiously beating one out.

Day 40: Had a beer and pizza night at Timmy's, just people from our section. An entire tray of pizza turned up for each person. As soon as alcohol hit Loz's lips he was drunk. Decided to cut some hair off my fringe, then spent the rest of the night very afraid. I wasn't too bothered because I was planning on going for a haircut on Sunday anyway, but I gave Loz my intimidating stare and just to help wind him up a bit more I got one of the chiefs to tell him that I was furious with him, and that he'd be safer sleeping in a different room that night. Since he has only the last episode of season 6 of The Walking Dead to watch I made some stuff up and told him that's how it ended. Oh, and I also cut a chunk of his hair out. He has a small bald spot on the back of his head now. He also got lots of rude pictures drawn along his left arm in indelible ink (that was nothing to do with me though). Matt turned up with slicked backed hair, a black tee shirt and blue jeans. He was immediately christened "Fatrick Swayze” and got Roadhouse quotes thrown at him all night long.

Day 41: Loz didn't return to the room until after 6 AM. He was a bit worried I was going to dig his eye out with my straight razor or something so slept in the bar. Laughed and told him it had all been a wind up. Finally got around to going to see the local war gaming club. As expected it was mostly 40K, but they do play some other games and have a load of stuff for Bolt Action. Played a bit of Talisman then had a look around the station library. They have a large collection of low budget DVD's so I think I'll be a frequent visitor.

Day 42: Bit of a p**sy day today. I think by the end of it all the juniors were feeling very irritated with the seniors in ways that will have longer term consequences. Some people have starting doing stuff to deliberately annoy] people up the chain. For myself I decided, fine I am not volunteering to help with any other jobs. They want anything extra for me they'll have to order me to do it. Other than that I'll be staying out of the p**sing contest. They never end well. On a completely different subject I have developed a system for where I sit in the mess. No 1: If possible sit at the end of the table and have your glass on the furthest edge from anyone to limit their chances of 'cupping' you (cupping is when someone else’s glass is empty and you finish yours then put it inside theirs so they have to take it away for you. That might not seem like much but when you have 6 people all with two glasses each if you get caught out you can end up with quite a balancing act). No 2: Do not sit beside Ali. When Ali eats he is all flying elbows everywhere. No 3: Do not sit beside Matt. Matt has a habit of not bothering to get a drink for himself, preferring to just steal someone else’s.

Day 43: Lots of murmurings about yesterday. Was in the office by myself which was good. By the end of yesterday I wasn't sure who I was more annoyed with. The people who caused the problems or listening to the ones complaining about it. Won a sports type water bottle off the British Forces Radio people by correctly identifying Al Greens "Tired of being alone", from the first few seconds of the intro. They had another competition in the afternoon for a beanie hat which I was tempted to enter when I heard the opening to Blondies "Call Me", but decided I shouldn't be greedy. It was then won by a woman who apparently has a large collection of the radio stations beanie hats already. Ali had to take a trip to Port Stanley to pick up paint for Timmy's, but was outraged when he heard I'd won the water bottle first time I'd entered. He's called in 5 times now and got nothing. As Loz was accompanying him to Stanley I let him borrow my prize so he could sit beside Ali and drink from it.

Day 44: Loz got the prime job of shovelling up all the stones from the walkway and re-laying them. Managed to hide away in the office most of the day and avoid joining in. Ali got the plum job of painting the new shelving in Timmy's. From the smell of the fumes I don't envy him either. Got busy doing PAT stuff. Ali didn't fall for my "Can you just hold these two bare wires so I can find out if they are live?" line though.

Day 45: Managed to cup Elle today. Apparently no one else has been able to catch her out. Work continues on Timmy's. Shelving is in place (ok it’s in places it was specifically not wanted for various reasons but it is there none the less). The vehicle the wing commander uses went for a servicing today. We don't know when we'll get it back but he took it in good humour when we told him they didn't have a replacement car and he'd be using the shoe leather express. He was surprisingly reasonable about it. I feel that reality has somehow took a bit of a wobble and isn't quite right after that. Loz went down the regiment section to drop off some stuff and accidently saw the time and date of our surprise callout written on a board. In order to put some suspense into this narrative I'm going to not keep when it’s happening a secret though. I have found one thing I enjoy about driving a car. After I've driven it when a tall person climbs inside they normally find their knees keeping their ears warm as they try to squeeze themselves into the space I normally use. So far this is showing no signs of losing its amusement value for me. As you have to sign the keys out, my name is always there as the last driver but so far no one has thought of checking that and thinking "Oh I need to shove the seat back before I climb in!". Looking forward to Hoagie Friday tomorrow although I've noticed our entire lives out here seem to revolve around eating times. Everything is organised around the mess opening times.

Day 46: Attended a road safety meeting on Lars' behalf since he is back in the UK for a couple of weeks. They were talking about spot checks on vehicles to check the daily and weekly servicing’s had been carried out. If you are caught not having carried them out correctly the vehicle will be immediately confiscated, so I thought I'd send out an email letting everyone know in advance and giving them a heads up. Apparently my style of prose is "brutal & to the point". Tomorrow I am going to resend the email in a gentler tone. It will be the exact same email but at the end I will add "Pretty please with a cherry on top". Our early morning call out has apparently been rescheduled. Not convinced that it isn't just a ploy. Either way I have my Bergan all packed and my webbing in assault order. I hate to think what techies would be like in a battle. One guy would be screaming orders and everyone else would be arguing with him each with their own idea on what would be a better way of doing things, before everyone who lost the argument in the end skulked off to go sulk somewhere, make a cup of tea and wonder where the 4-star hotel was anyway. Signed up for the Mid-Winter Swim. Next month we'll travel down to Port Stanley and then run into the middle of the South Atlantic in the middle of winter (yes, the southern hemisphere gets its seasons wrong as well as its water going the wrong way down the plughole (although I have yet to witness this. Generally, I view the correct way for water to go through a plug hole is down and if it’s coming the wrong way it means you are flooding). Told Kristi to start booking things for our next holiday by the end of the week. Not sure on the dates for flying out / coming home (although we have rough ones in mind), but we can get things like the Californian part of the trip all sorted and paid for. Looking forward to it, especially since we didn't go away for a holiday last year. Got a few things thought out for the pair of us to slip off just together with no one else (although somehow I don't think I'll get my coast to coast drive in on the basis that neither of us likes driving), but I am sure we can get a couple of days in Yellowstone or visit the Grand Canyon ourselves.

Day 47: The Warrant had to go into Stanley at 10:00 this morning with Elle and Loz. About 10:05 Fish came in a said we could all go home early. Bumped into Ryan at the mess and he was wondering why we were all in civvies. He'd already asked Matt and Ali and didn't believe whatever they had said, so when I sat down and he asked me for a sensible answer I told him (kids and straight laced people might want to skip until tomorrow, if you don't well you were warned. This is the kind of humour you get in the military) that we'd been having an orgy and all our uniforms were covered in stains. He then asked where Loz and Elle where and the answer involved them having to be rushed to the med centre afterwards due to what they’d got in their eyes. Every time Ryan tried asking anyone a question after that he just got more and more details as Matt and Ali ran with the details. Poor Ryan fell off his seat laughing as everyone just kept on coming up with more elaborate deviant sexual acts. Our section has been assigned 2 Land Rovers, one the juniors use (14) and one the seniors normally use (15). 14 has a bit of a problem starting in the morning. We've taken it to MT (the motor pool for anyone states side) and they've said it’s just the cold mornings. It's became a ritual for other sections to turn up and watch to see how long it takes to start 14 up and take bets on wither or not today will be the day it finally breaks down.

Day 48: Went out with Ali and Ryan last night. Managed to make two beers and a coke last me the entire night. The other two... well they are suffering to various degrees today. Loz turned up half way through the night. The bars on camp are only allowed to be open from 19:00 to 23:00, which means that everyone tends to drink lots very quickly and they end up more drunk than if the opening hours were a bit longer. Started painting Kristi's US airborne army, although it’s the non-airborne bits I am working on first (a Sherman tank and a M3A1 halftrack). The lack of spray paint is going to make painting the infantry awkward. Was sitting at my computer earlier when Loz and Matt walked in from the gym. Loz asked Matt when he was going to go out. He said he was going to go back to his room "For a quick tug" and then go out. I turned my computer around to face him and asked him to say hello to Kristi on the other end of a Skype call. First time I have seen him blush. Was just as well the call had ended when half an hour later he walked in and told us it just hadn't been happening for him. He did panic after he said it and asked if I was still on Skype. Wish I'd said yes just to wind him up.

Day 49: Ali was due to head back to the UK tomorrow but his flight has been delayed 24 hours. Means he loses a day of his R&R as they don't give you it back. I'd feel sorrier for him if he hadn't been rubbing it in everyone’s faces that he was going back to the UK for two weeks.

Day 50: Elle's replacement arrived today. She brought him into the office to introduce him to everyone. Ryan who was looking forward to her going so he'd no longer be referred to as Rapey was a bit taken aback when she walked in the office and said "This is rapey Ryan".

Day 51: Snow White & The Huntsman comes into the cinema today. I went to see the first one, not falling for that a second time. I don't care if Loz does have a thing for Chris Hemsworth.

Day 52: Timmy's tee shirts arrived today. Since the boss has been saying he really wants to push Timmy's and get the logo out there and seen it was a bit disappointing that he didn't buy one himself. Suggested we get a few extra in to sell from behind the bar if anyone wants one. Gave Loz a challenge at the start of the week. By tomorrow he has to find out if the place mentioned in the song "Echo Beach" is a real place and if so, where it is. So far he has failed. Today we told him there was a forfeit if he fails in his task. The next time he gets drunk I will let Matt climb naked into bed beside him, take photos and send them to his wife. So far he has forgotten about it. Matt is being wound up more about his "Going for a tug" comment. Today we told him that Kristi had been on Skype to her mum at the same time as she was chatting to me, and that since she didn't know what the phrase meant she had asked lots of her friends so Matt is now famous in Utah. We also told him we are going to submit an entry to the urban dictionary and we'd make sure a picture of him was beside it. Reserve call out finally happened. Went better than expected, most people had most of the kit although I did have a word with the lad who turned up with an electric razor. When we got back to the block Loz couldn't find his duty phone so ran back up to work to search for it up there. It was raining pretty heavily so he was soaked through by the time he got back. Shame he hadn't checked his jacket pocket a bit more carefully as it turned out to be in there after all.
Day 53: Being on theatre reserve this week meant no drinking. So I definitely didn't go out drinking with Loz, Matt, Elle, Mike (Elle's replacement) & Vaughn (our flight sergeant). As I am not a senior rank I also definitely didn't have any shots of JD that juniors aren't allowed. I especially didn't challenge the flight sergeant to a game of 30 minutes (the aim of the game is to see how many JD's each person can drink in 30 minutes). This is a game I have played many times in the past and to this day I still have no idea what the answer is.

Day 54: Decided not to have a hangover today. Which is just as well since I didn't drink last night. Managed not to take my wallet with me to work today, but Loz got me my hoagie for hoagie Friday. I'll get him his next week. Lars got back from his R&R today. We decided to wait for him at the terminal (which is the building right beside our workplace anyway). We even made up a little 'Lars Picken' sign to hold. Then since he keeps mentioning it, we put in brackets (He was on the Red Arrows you know). Elle checked out last night, her flight leaves at 4 am tomorrow. We all said our good byes although Loz stayed with her to give her a lift up to the air bridge. I wonder how this will affect the Disney Club?
Day 55: With Elle gone we have been seeing a lot less of... Them! around. Handed over our duty phones to 2 platoon so peace and quiet for 3 weeks. Loz asked if I could get more revenge on Matt for him. He found Matt trying to stick his man parts in his (Loz's) water bottle. That could be tough to escalate. I shall have to do some plotting and see what I can come up with.

Day 56: I think visiting here would be a severe test for any vegetarian. If you are lucky you might have one veggie option for lunch, but breakfast... well if you get in early before it’s all gone you might get some fruit. For your main meal you'd be down to sides. Peas, beans and carrots with sometimes sweetcorn. On the other hand, they do have an excellent selection of meats. For dinner today I had what basically amounted to a two-inch-thick slab of bacon cooked to perfection. If I had any room left at the end, I'd have gone back up for seconds. Decided to watch Gotham. Turned out to be a fairly short season, so ended up starting Fringe after it.

Day 57: Work was rather frantic this morning. I can either try and sort some stuff out and get it done properly giving myself many headaches trying to deal with it or I can chin it off and let the next guy make the same decision. Good job I brought Neurofen with me. On the plus side I am almost a third of the way through my tour. At the end of the month its Fixmas where since its winter down here they celebrate the midwinter solstice. Before then I have the mid-winter swim I've signed up for. Joined a sweepstake for the football thing that’s coming up. Drew Switzerland... or was it Sweden? Whichever one I figured they had no chance of winning, so since Lars was out the office I gave his name instead of mine. Matt has been a lot quieter since Elle left and Loz seems to be slightly lost. I guess she was the glue that held that clique together.

Day 58: Loz's birthday today. He asked us to keep it quiet and not tell anyone so we got him a giant cake and invited everyone from the section. Went to the shop to get him a birthday card. All the ones they sold had ages on them and none of them matched his age (35), so I got one for a 70th birthday and cut it in half.
Day 59: The joy of the Saturday FOD plod only on a Wednesday. Walked up and down the taxi way. Bearing in mind it was snowing, icy underfoot with high winds I decided to only pick up any notable bits of FOD instead of the usual little bits of rubber from tyres etc. Unfortunately, I found a lot of that and didn't just get to stroll around with my hands in my pockets.

Day 60: Went to do all the PAT stuff for the photog. He told me he had 3 things that needed tested... 27 items later I ran out of the plastic strip to print out any more labels for his electrics. He did thank me and said if I ever needed a favour just to ask. Having someone who is trained to sneak up to windows and take photos of people without them noticing could be useful owing me a favour could be useful in helping Loz get revenge on Matt...

Day 61: Loz went out drinking last night. All he ate before-hand was a sandwich and a packet of crisps. He was rather drunk when he staggered back in just before midnight. Decided not to sit up and make sure he doesn't choke on his on vomit again as I really needed the sleep and it felt too cold to get out of bed. I checked he was still alive when I woke up in the morning though. Just as well really. If he had died I suspect, there would be paperwork I'd have to fill in about it and that would really cheese me off.

Day 62: Hoagie Friday. Invited Lars to come with us. Apparently no one had ever invited him before and he'd never been to the cafe in the 5 months he'd been here. Loved it and wishes he'd been before. Had a power cut and got to come home early. Since tomorrow is my Saturday off this month this means I actually get a proper weekend. Finishing work Friday lunchtime should be made mandatory for everyone. But I would just like to say to everyone out there who doesn't get to enjoy such benefits at work that you have my sympathy and it sucks to be you. Got a care package from Kristi which is always good for morale. She'd included a set of goggles as I am planning on going to the swimming pool a few evenings every week. Tried running and I can still get 5km done in an ok time, but the pain my feet are in for the next few days just isn't worth it as much as I'd love to get running again. Was going to go to the pool last night but the power was still off down that end of the building. Just as a random note Mount Pleasant Complex (MPC) is the world’s longest covered walkway. It’s also unheated and people have a habit of leaving fire doors open so it gets pretty cold, but you are at least normally out of the wind. Lots of grey concrete and pipes and for anyone with any military experience where anything is painted its magnolia. Had a chat with Loz last night. Suggested we go half each on a full time internet connection (£80 a month) rather than relying on the free 100 minutes a week we get. It’s my turn to have Saturday off tomorrow (found out that every other section on base has every second Saturday off rather than the one a month we get) so going to make sure I get some time down at Area 51 chatting to Kristi.

Day 63: Went swimming with Ryan today. The last time I remember going swimming I am pretty sure was in Norway so having to relearn lots. He has a pretty good technique (he'd have to, to swim the distance he did for his charity event) so the plan is that I'll go on Saturdays with him for some lessons and come down a couple of nights a week myself. Some football team is playing another football team. I was asked if I wanted to go down the cinema with them and watch it then go for pizza. I was never a big fan of football but being stabbed after a game really put me off completely. Trying to explain that I am seriously not interested in going to watch a game that bores the hell out of me can be a bit difficult as fans tend not to understand how other people can fail to be interested in their obsession. I have my own obsessions to amuse me thank you very much and don't need anyone else’s. Was going to the toilet and some random guy stopped me in the corridor to tell me how Wales had done. He could have stood there, slapped me with a fish while screaming "DOORMAT!" repeatedly and it would have made exactly the same amount of sense to me. Joined the rest of the group for pizza after the game. The pub was pretty empty and very subdued so I figured whatever the score was England didn't win. However, I didn't see any fights breaking out either so it looks like either it was a draw or a narrow loss. When I was younger we used to play a game where every time England's world cup win in 1966 was mentioned during any football tournament you had to down a shot. Eventually we'd to stop doing it due to the amount of damage our livers were taking. There were all sorts of rules like if it was mentioned in the first 60 seconds of a TV broadcast it had to be a neat treble. Left when the others decided to go down the Cat’s Cradle. Figured if I was finally getting started doing some fitness type stuff that I could do without being in lots of pain for a couple of days afterwards I wasn't going to spoil it by drinking more. Found out one of the girls I vaguely know put in a complaint for sexual harassment on Friday. Then I remembered on Friday I'd given her a lift in our Land Rover down to Oasis. I thought "Hey wait a sec, about the only thing I said to her was when I told her to put her seat belt on." Turned out some guy had been chatting to someone back in the UK via Messenger and the guy in the UK made a comment about her while. She happened to be standing behind the guy here at the time and saw the message.

Day 64: Another power cut today (3rd one in two weeks). The flight decided we should paint up some more of Timmy's. After about half an hour it came back on so went back to work. Later on I went through the bar, paused coming out the other side sighed heavily and went back to my office. The flight was there. He asked if I could go put a wet paint sign on the door as he'd went back in to paint the door but hadn't put a sign up to say the door wasn't dry. I replied "Oh really? You went back into the bar and painted more and didn't put up a sign to say the paint was wet." and held up my hand with the palm all covered in paint.

Day 65: Plastic knifes and pork steaks are not natural bedfellows.

Day 66: Had a lot of pressure this week to conform to things. There is a lot of football on for example and everyone thinks I should join them and support england. Since even if Scotland was playing I still wouldn't be interested in watching football that's not going to happen. I pointed out the last time I was made to watch an english football match I supported the opposition instead (Argentina I think it was) and would be following the same policy if forced into it again this time. I also mentioned that I would be quite happy if the fan violence going on resulted in them being sent home early as it would mean I wouldn't have to put up with people wanting me to watch matches. When I was told you shouldn't wish your own country would get sent home for football violence I pointed out that it wasn't my country. The other area is the whole European referendum. When asked which side I supported my answer was "In, but I'll be voting for out". I'd then to explain that I reckoned leaving would result in a lot of damage to our economy and that would then make it easier to persuade Kristi to move to another country when I leave the job. Apparently this wasn't the answer they expected and I should vote out for other reasons. One of the reasons I wanted Scotland to vote for independence was that we'd have a government that was interested in being in Europe and get to avoid this referendum. Part of me thinks that people should have to sit a test to show they have a basic awareness of what the issues they are voting on are, and have formed their own opinions rather than just what they've read in a newspaper or in some internet forum.

Day 67: Went down to Surf Bay for the Mid-Winter Swim. Over 300 people turned up for it. At 11:00 we all ran in. Got to about waist deep on me and the first wave hit everyone. About 90% of people at that point turned around and ran straight back out. One of our chiefs ran in wearing his glasses and after that wave came back out without them. Silly bugger. The water felt about the same kind of temperatures as the North Sea, although the sand was freezing cold. This is one of the few situations I'd say wearing flip flops is an acceptable option. Anyway, afterwards we headed into the Seaman's Mission (The Victory Bar) and started our fourteen hour long drinking session. I can now say I've been in every pub in Stanley (even though it has a population of about 1500 it counts as a city as it has a cathedral). After the Seamen's Mission we hit The Globe, then Deanos (the local nightclub, but no one else was in there), so I dragged them to Bitter Sweet. Apparently this is the islands gay club. They were having an 80's night with a live band who were actually pretty good. Spent the rest of the night on the dance floor. We got back to the room about one in the morning and Loz decided he had to listen to my iPod (me, Matt, Ali and Loz were sharing a room), and put on Jagged Little Pill at full volume before falling asleep. As Matt was in the room I decided there was no way I was going to sleep until he had passed out, lay there awake for a while and my thoughts turned to thinking it was Father’s Day. Was glad everyone else was asleep as I spent some time crying over never having been able to hold her in my arms.
My knees now hate me thanks to my gout and drinking spirits.

Day 68: Most people had a hangover this morning. Except me. I made sure I was extra happy and bouncy to make up for everyone else being unhappy. Or maybe I was just feeding on their misery. Sometime in the afternoon people started passing breath tests so we drove back. Had a hard time not smirking at those who were feeling a bit under the weather suffering on a road where if you took away the pot holes you wouldn't know where the road was. I could see every bump in the road etched on their faces.

Day 69: A few people still seemed to be broken from the weekend. Mostly SNCO's. England were playing football again. I am guessing from no one wanting to go out tonight that they didn't win. Every time the RAF has sent me away somewhere there has been a major football tournament and England end up with a new manager.

Day 70: Had a gout attack this morning so off work for a couple of days. Got it in my wrist, knees and toe. By the evening the knees and wrist were fine and I could limp about not too bad.

Day 71: Toe is badly swollen today. Not going anywhere. Normally the meds clear it up in minutes then leaving me feeling like crap from the side effects.

Day 72: Gout is now only in my toe, and it’s not the most painful it’s ever been, but it still hurts. On theatre reserve which would prove interesting if my platoon was to be called out with me trying to hobble over rough ground. Remembered to tell Kristi to transfer our savings into dollars before the referendum (just), as I had a feeling the leave side would win. Was Skyping Kristi today and could hear a man in another booth wailing (to the point where I thought he was going to burst out into tears) "But I'd never have voted leave if I thought they would actually win!" Fixmas Eve parties are tonight, one in the Gull & Penguin and one in Sharkies (or possibly Shakies) with karaoke. Decided not to take the chance on going with the rest of the group to it and having someone stand on my toe which (once I'd stopped rolling around in pain) would not have ended well.

Day 73: Theatre reserve time has rolled around again along with our Saturday training (delayed from last weekend). We were getting shown around the sanger positions we'll be defending. This involved a bit of walking over rough ground. It took me twice as long to move from the road to the first location since I have to limp everywhere. After that the SNCO's agreed I could sit in the minibus, especially since one of the sangers involves a 1 km off road walk over boggy terrain and a jump over a ditch. I did offer to go and let them practise a casualty evacuation as they'd have to carry me back. Loz, Ali and Ryan went to the pub last night. When they got back Ryan decided to jump into bed with me. I made it clear that if he as much as touched my toe when he woke up in the morning his head would be wondering where his body had gone to. He jumped onto my bed (with me in it), declared it was really comfortable and that he wanted to stay there. Loz managed to pee his bed, although he did realise what was happening and ran off to the toilet at the far end of the corridor. By the time he got back he was wondering why his bed was wetand accused me of peeing on it. This morning at breakfast Ryan suddenly had a look of panic on his face and said "I think I just remembered getting in your bed last night." Told him yes he had and that he was going to pay for it at some point in the future. Loz has decided he is going to tell Matt about his toothbrush (I told him it was his choice when to let Matt know). The day he has decided to tell him is during Matt's leaving speech. Not sure if I mentioned this before but I got Matt back for having sex with Loz's water bottle. I used his toothbrush to clean my arm pits and between my toes. You'd have thought with the things he's pulled on other people he'd be more careful about where he leaves his toothbrush. For the Fixmas dinner tonight they gave us a couple of beers, which of course being on theatre reserve we didn't sneak back to the room and drink while watching boxing. We especially didn't walk past the base CO will carrying them. And Loz hasn't ended up going to Brintel bar as he decided to have a quiet night in and is of course sticking to that resolution with an iron will.

Day 74: Awoke this morning without any attempted molestation by Ryan. He decided to bring me back some ham and cheese rolls from the mess as a peace offering. Not telling him if it worked or not. My toe is finally starting to clear up and I can walk around almost normally now. Ali was questioning why I was drinking green rather than red with my dinner (we have three choices of liquid to drink with dinner, clear, red and green. Some think red and green are supposed to have flavours, but my theory is that they are water with some food colouring. This is common to every mess in the air force that I have ever been in). Finished painting all the troops I'd brought out for Kristi's US army. About 60 infantry, a Sherman tank, M3 scout car and a half track so I'll get down the post office and get them sent back home to her. Still finding painting the Kings of War dwarfs I brought out with me tough though.

Day 75: Got asked to make a Pingu (a diorama featuring a penguin) as a gizzit for the Flight Sergeant leaving (it’s the F/S we like, not the other one). Since his interests are drinking lots and flying kites I decided to make a miniature Timmy's bar and have a passed out penguin lying surrounded by empty cans and bottles with a kite string in his hand. We have balsa wood, modelling clay, some paints, brushes and pritt stick glue. The bar is recognisable. Used a couple of square blocks, glued them together and painted them red as a coke fridge.
All the southern lads are upset at losing to Iceland. As I said to Ali though, you voted to get out of Europe and now you are complaining about getting what you wanted.

Day 76: Finished the diorama. It ended up looking a lot better than I thought it would. I did a mini Timmys' with a passed out penguin lying on the floor surrounded by cans and bottles. Put in quite a few extra touches like a thick book with the title "s**t Jobs for Loz. Vol 1". The only two things that are currently worrying me are 1) having made it, I now want to keep it and 2) it might not be possible to get it back to the UK unbroken. High winds met a hanger door today and we were all evacuated and sent home early in case the door fell off and crushed our building. Not only would it have to fall off to do this. It would have to perform some aerial stunts including a backwards somersault over a 4 story building to get to us, but I am not going to complain about an early finish today.
Feeling fairly sickened about what’s been happening back in the UK following the referendum. That my wife has decided she has to cancel a trip down south because of people’s racism totally disgusts me. I mean do the people who voted for leaving hear this stuff on the news and think "Hey, that's what I voted for" and feel really proud of themselves or something? Argh!
Day 77: In a couple of weeks I'll be half way through my tour. Most of the guys here track the number of days they have left until they are going back home. Me, I count the days until I am out the air force (2561). There are a huge number of people from loads of different countries down here, mostly army guys. I keep thinking if we kick them all out who the hell is going to replace them? I mean how many people who want to cut immigration will actually be prepared to get up off their arses and actually defend the country the way these guys are. Every time I see someone from a different background I feel like apologising to them for what’s going on and thinking "Wow, they are out here doing this job and back home their families are getting crap and being told to f**k off home". That's one of the problems with votes. Other people have to live with the consequences of how you use yours.
On a lighter note, Ryan broke the cupping rules to cup me (since it was an illegal cuppage I am not counting it). Today I was checking the electrical safety on his test equipment. I came through the office and sat down with my very serious face on sat down and said "Ryan, your multi meter test equipment failed. Everything that has been tested on it since it was last checked in October is going to have to be recalled and redone." At this point the colour was draining out of Ryan's face. "Oh crap, that's about 40 multi meters".
"Yeah", I replied "although I thought it would be more than that."
"I can't recall them all. HMS (can't remember the name of the ship) is doing its Antarctic patrol. This will make the entire ship U/S (unserviceable)!"
"Not only that mate, everything they have been used to test will also have to be redone. It's going to be thousands of items."
Ryan started to go a bit ashen grey at this point. I couldn't keep a straight face any longer and told him it was all a wind up. Then I said "You won't try breaking the rules of cupping again with me will you?" If you are going to get revenge you really just can't do back what was done to you. Things always need to be stepped up a bit. Just to worry him a bit more later on he was cutting something with a Stanley Knife and I wet "Ooooooh, pretty shiny stabby thing. Can I play with it?" When he said no I went on to do my best Gollum impression calling it my precious and that I wants it. That wasn't part of my revenge, I just did it to randomly amuse myself when work was a bit slow.
Day 78: Got myself in the quote book today for a perfectly innocent remark. Lars was complaining about not winning a forces radio hat. He has only tried once or twice whereas Ali tries pretty much every day. I like to wind him up by wearing mine a lot. I said to Lars "Just think how bad Ali must feel about me winning a hat on my second try. Sometimes I like to lie in bed wearing nothing but my hat and touch myself while thinking about how Ali doesn't have one." As I said, a totally innocent remark. We are possibly having a St Trinians night at Timmys' on Saturday. It might have to be called off as the CWO has decided everyone dressing up as schoolgirls is sexist. Ryan is getting some girls to give him a full makeover for it. At lunch he said "Yeah, on Saturday night I am going to zip tie myself to my bed ready for Ali". I know what he meant to say it just didn't come out the right way, but did he get in the quote book for that? No. Not picked myself up a costume for the night out as I am just not feeling like going to it, although since its Lars and the Flight Sgts leaving do, I will go and put in an appearance. Won't be drinking though. My gout attack is finally clearing up and I have no wish to restart it.
 
Day 79: Today at work was manic. Lars was showing his replacement around, Ali was trying to get Timmys' finished for Saturday (which still may or may not be happening), and Ryan disappeared off to Stanley to pick up wigs. The phones were going mental with various things that needed dealing with and Ryan decided to argue with a guy from the army. Ryan was totally in the right in his position, but he was arguing with an army staff sergeant and got pulled up for his attitude by one of our sergeants so he wasn't happy. Ali was also nursing a severe hangover. On the plus side I got a couple of letters from Gina & Brian, one from Kristi and a care package as well. The other guys in the office are pretty jealous of all the stuff I get from home as its always a big morale boost getting things from home when your communications out here as so limited. Kristi was given a challenge to find something to boost the morale of the whole office in each package she sends, but it has to cost under £1. Today it was some polystyrene planes (I grabbed the Fouke Wulf first, Ryan got a Japanese Zero while Ali & Moggy (the new SNCO's nickname, apparently he got it when he was wiping some oil off his face the same way a cat cleans itself) got two aircraft I'd never heard of. Managed to hit Ryan twice in the head with my plane so I am confident I picked the best one).

Day 80: A moderate snow fall last night meant we'd to go in early and sweep away all the snow from the front of the building and put down some rock salt. Last night Loz was watching Wales play someone else at football. Ali said he hoped Wales lost so I had a bit of a go at him over them expecting me to support England, but not being willing to support another home nation themselves.

Day 81: Today marks a milestone. If something happens and I get sent home I have now done long enough not to have to come back. The weather has taken a turn for the worse over the last few days and no one is looking forward to the upcoming exercise. Sooooo... last night’s St Trinians night. Well if you could get some mind bleach there are certainly some things I would want to scrub from my mind. First off was turning around and seeing my roommate wearing nothing but a pair of lacy see through underwear. Later on in the night I turned around only to be confronted by the sight on one of the SNCO's butt's barely being covered by a thong. After that I stopped turning around. Loz in a little black dress and black wig is a scary thing. Ryan in a purple wig... well the best description of that was "Holy crap, its Rambo in drag!", although I'd have more went for Micky Rorke. As in how he looks in Sin City. Then slather lip stick on him, paint his fingernails, put a skirt and white blouse on, stuff some socks in a bra and it still doesn't quite cover just how scary it looked. I'd offered to cover Ryan's call out over the weekend and went home early. Especially when Loz had to take his undies off as they were cutting into him badly and his man part was dangling lower than the hem of his dress. Ryan, Loz and Sally (a dental nurse from one of the rooms in our corridor) all staggered in our room sometime after half one. Ryan again attempted to get in bed with me until I got fed up, got my straight razor out and told him if he didn't stop he was going to learn the meaning of the word 'mangina'. He asked for a cuddle, so I stood up and told him if he walked into my arms he could have a hug. I then kept stepping backwards as he staggered towards me and guided him back to his room, then put him in his own bed. He came back through about an hour later. Sally told him to go back to bed. He said "You can't send me to bed, you’re not my mum" only for Sally to shout at him. His head went down and he mumbled "Yes mum" in a very petulant voice then wandered off to bed.

Day 92: Ryan popped in the room this morning and immediately said "I can't remember anything about last night, but whatever I did I am really sorry." Loz, Ali and Matt also have a memory blank. Matt would really like to remember why is nose is swollen with a cut along the front of it. Looks like he has been punched to me. It was like a low budget version of The Hangover as people tried to piece together what had happened last night. I've started a rumour that the woman whose bum Matt pinched was actually a marine in drag and that's where his injury came from, but no one has been able to find out anything so far. Ryan did have a panic when the woman who promised she would let him have some nail polish remover couldn't be found. Work could be interesting tomorrow if he still has it on.
Day 83: Took over looking after the SIF vehicles today. Decided to do an inspection on one of them. Big automatic Land Rover, and not one of the crappy ones like we get but one of the more top of the range jobs. The MT guys were on their lunch when we got there, so to pass the time while we waited we drove down to Mare Harbour. Took some shots of HMS Clyde on the way and the snow covered landscape. Will get them uploaded at some point. Also grabbed some pictures and videos from Lars from the Mid-Winter swim.

Day 84: Favourite conversation from yesterday: ME "Ryan, do we have a 1/8th step down for a torque wrench" RYAN "I have no idea what one of them looks like." ME "It’s the same as a 2/16ths."

Day 85: Some poor young LAC came into our building to see our EFDC Tech (Loz). He was carrying a plastic bag and said "I've been sent over with this bag of APU exhaust fumes, they need testing urgently." Loz spoke to him for a bit. The guy said he didn't think the way of collecting the fumes was the best in the world, just putting a carrier bag over the exhaust pipe. He was asked if the bag was taped shut and he said no, just folded over. As he went to open the bag to show us, Loz is shouting "No no no!" if you open it you'll ruin the sample. Anyway we sent him over the road to the med centre and to the station health and safety rep telling him we didn't test that. I wonder how much of the station he will end up running around before someone tells him he has fallen for a joke. Happened to be outside when the big bird of freedom took off carrying several people I know on it, getting to go home early. Right then at that point, I wanted nothing more than my very own ground to air missile. If I have to be stuck here, everyone else should be stuck here too! Started work on Pingu's for the Major and Wing Commander since they are leaving soon. Since I am being directed on what to make it’s not quite as fun as the one I did for the flight sergeant where I was given free reign but I am sure I can at least slip in a few ideas here and there.

Day 86: Had a few beers last night. We were joined by a few people from one of the sqns. We were playing a drinking game where if you can drop a 20p coin into someone’s drink they then have to down the rest of their drink in one. Ryan had the misfortune to be sitting beside me and got very drunk very quickly thanks to a pocket full of change I happened to have.

Day 87: Last day before the big exercise. You could tell everyone who is going to be involved in it by their general grumpiness. One of the girls from 1312 was with us and since she is fairly cute no one was putting any 20p in her drink. When she got a bottle of wine I just had to drop one in though.

Day 88: Didn't get called out today. Since all the stories about where we are going and what we are going to be doing have come from Ryan, and so far, none of them have been right I have decided to start keeping a tally of 'Ryan's Rumours', and see how many (if any) he gets right before he leaves. Speaking of Ryan, I've told him the next time he tries to get into bed with me I am going to video it on my phone, upload it to Facebook and tag his wife in it. He is now begging everyone he goes out drinking with not to let him come near my room. Bumped into the 1312 lot on the way to the mess. The girl from last night thanked me for her hang over.

Day 89: Finally got the call out. Our platoon had to man 4 sangers, one of which was about a mile and a half walk over rough ground (very marshy). I volunteered for that one on the basis that it was too remote for them actually to stage any of the exercise in. Went up there with 3 others carrying 3 days’ worth of supplies, including clothes, tent, sleeping bags, and a couple of jerry cans filled with water. We set up the tent and I rotated everyone around in 2 hour shifts until 22:00 when I had us do two five hour shifts so each person got a five-hour sleep, then back to the two hour shifts. It was pretty cold, but not too bad, although at no point did any of us manage to get our feet warm regardless of where we were, what we wore or what we tried. I don't think it went into minus double figures although every two hours we did have to clear the ice off the tent. As I guessed we were left alone all night. I have two navy guys and an ex-marine who had transferred to the RAF as my manpower. The navy guys were stunned when I got the tent out the bag. They thought we were going to be digging a pit each and sleeping under poncho's. Told them we are the RAF not the army. We don't find a field and dig in, we find a hotel and check in (the truth is that it is very hard to maintain a fast jet in a muddy field. Tend to require runways and stuff so we are normally operating from slightly more urban locations. Except for the helicopter folks, but they don't count as proper aircraft, I mean take the Merlin helicopter. You expect me to accept that as an aircraft, yet it is maintained by the navy not the RAF. That makes it a boat). The ex-marine lad (who was the youngest of us all) whined constantly about the cold. I sent him out on a patrol just to get some peace and quiet. Luckily for him he didn't stumble into a colony of killer penguins in the dark and he made it back ok. When he got back he was too cold to talk anymore which was something of a relief.

[Alex]

Day 90: In the morning one of the (RAF) chefs brought us a tray filled with a cooked breakfast. Bacon, sausages, eggs and hash browns which was a real morale boost. Couldn't have been easy carry it to us either so a big thank you to him for going that extra mile for us. At 10:30am I got a surprise on the radio when our captain (yes, I was under the command of someone from the army, I feel all tainted in a way I don't think I will ever get rid of now) said that I was to have everyone packed up and return to our pick up point for further orders. We hung about in a shed for a few hours and then got moved onto 4 hours’ notice to move instead of 2 so our platoon 2 IC said we could slip off to the mess for a proper meal. Went and had a slice of belly pork done in a BBQ that was just lush. It was hanging over each side of my plate. When we got back to the shed one of the other platoons was being made to eat rat packs instead. I made sure to share the experience of my belly pork with them and tell them just how good it tasted while they tucked into their reconstituted tuna chilli or whatever they got. Spent about 4 hours waiting and then end ex was called. We found out that one of the other platoons had came across 3 unidentified persons during the exercise, so they arrested them, tied them up and put them in a cold sanger for several hours until a pick up could be arranged. Turned out they were civvy contractors who had accidently wandered into the wrong area. Anyway, got my equipment and weapons put away and got back to my room just in time to get the news about Nice. I am fairly tired at the moment so maybe I'll write about that tomorrow.

Day 91: Soooo... Been thinking about what happened in France last night. If people are going to use trucks to attack crowds I think the answer is to give everyone their own truck. After all the only way to stop a bad man with a truck is a good guy with a truck. Everyone should have the right to have one, even without prior training in using one so they can defend themselves properly.
If that sounds stupid... well it’s the same argument I keep hearing when people get killed by guns on how they should be able to defend themselves.
Back in work today. Went out to do some checks on the SIF vehicles and went mental at the state the last people who hired them left them in. I am now insisting the people who take the keys back actually carry out the inspections of the vehicles to make sure they are washed and cleaned out before being returned. It is not my job to clean up other people’s sweet wrappers and other random crap they leave behind. Looking into wither or not we can get people to put down a deposit which if the vehicle is returned in a s**t state will not be returned.
Day 92: Not actually ate a proper meal since my belly pork. Going to have to make a bit of an effort and go to the mess tomorrow. Since I've finished painting Kristi's WWII USA army, and I can't quite seem to get into painting my dwarf army I decided to order a Japanese army. Wow, those guys were lacking in equipment compared to the other combatants. No decent tanks, and very low numbers on what they did have, no heavy machine guns, limited sub machine guns... the list goes on. I am basing it on the fall of Singapore / Burma campaigns (if memory serves the Japanese lost more troops in that campaign than any other). I think the fight to the borders of India and the subsequent push back eastwards gets forgotten about a lot. I know Kristi was surprised when I mentioned to her that Britain & the empire had been fighting the Japanese in the Pacific the entire war and not just after Pearl Harbour forced the US into the conflict. Anyway, I am liking the Japanese grenadier squads where I can have three light mortars in an infantry squad instead of a separate support unit. I can see my firebase being built around that. Certainly it’s not going to be centered on my Chi-Ha tank which a T-34 or Sherman would laugh at. Not got much in the way of anti-tank stuff beyond some guys with explosives onna stick who run towards tanks and basically blow themselves up. If Mette war gamed I could see her just fielding those troops and no others. Although I suspect she’d have fish onna stick instead.

Day 93: Looking after the SIF vehicles continues to take up more of my time than my actual job. Many of us find ourselves that dealing with things that aren't our job is what occupies your time. It’s almost as if they decided "Right, let’s put X amount of men there, now find jobs for them!" rather than looking at what jobs needed doing and assign manpower appropriately.

Day by day, piece by piece the penguins take my sanity.

Day 94: Today left me looking for someone to stab. Luckily for Ryan he is away for two weeks and anyone else would be noticed if they went missing. Spent last night polishing up my boots. Today I ended up wading through mud cleaning up the SIF vehicles. Just about finished the Major's Pingu (85% done), so the warrant came in to have a look at it. He had a whole bunch of new ideas and wants me to rip out the stuff I've done and do all new things (one of the things he wants taking out is the Pengu. I did point out to him that the Pengu was the whole point of doing the damn thing). Then when I was cleaning paint and glue off my hands my wedding ring slipped off and went straight down the sink. Didn't bother raising a work service or anything, just immediately started pulling the plumbing apart until I'd recovered it. Might have gotten out of doing Orderly Cpl on Saturday night (basically dealing with all the drunks in the bar at the end of the night. Saturday night is the worst night to do) as I am on Theatre Reserve that weekend and can't double hat those duties. I suspect I will end up doing both anyway. Oh and I had several nosebleeds through the day. Ali was a bit perturbed when I had one at lunch time and didn't notice until he pointed it out.

Day 95: The warrant came in to see the Major's Pingu. He loves it all except for the Pingu and wants to remove it. I have pointed that a Pingu without a Pingu isn't a Pingu. At this point I am fighting to keep in on not because I care but out of sheer bloody mindedness. Have you ever tried cutting a suit of Iron man armour out of balsa wood?

Day 96: Confirmed today that I will be doing both of the duties on Saturday. To be honest there isn't anyone else available from the section to cover any of them. A few people have said the warrant has been chatting to them about the Pingu. If he really wants it off that much he should take it off. I am not just going to remove it though. He came up with loads of other ideas of things to add to it. I had to point out though it was already looking overcrowded with the number of other things he wanted on it and I only had a few more days to finish them with the wing commanders still to be started so chances are I won't have time to add all the extra stuff in. All this bother for something that the chances are will be looked at once and then forgotten about / binned.

Day 97: Did super-secret ninja scuba diving training today. If I tell anyone about it though I'd have to kill them, so don't go reading the bit I just wrote as having to kill you would lead to me being very upset. For a start it takes ages to get all the bloodstains out of my clothes. Kristi finally got her passport back and her next visa for remaining in the UK. It’s only over 7 months late but we can now get moving forward with our holiday plans and sorting out her coming down here to visit if she wishes or me heading back home for a bit.

Day 98: Big FOD plod this morning. Walked along the airfield, then we all had to climb through some razor wire to do the rest. Ground was rather frosty and when we had finished we were a good hours walk over cross country to get back to camp so me and Fish snuck onto a bus that was taking another section back and got to laugh as we watched everyone else stumbling through the long grass and marshland to get back. Possibly the worst organised FOD plod I have ever been on though. I blame the army. At some point recently I passed the 50% of my tour done mark so I now have less days to go than I've already done. For a lot of people this is a big psychological boost and makes them feel better. Doesn't seem to work for me as wither I have 30 or 300 days left doesn't make me feel any different. The only day I am interested in is the one I get to go home on. Really looking forward to getting to sleep in my own bed, cuddle up next to Kristi and just spending time with her. Going to put in for my 2 months off on Monday and once that is sorted out we can book flights and so on. Watched an interview with Jim Henson, but when he is speaking all I can hear is Kermit the frog.

Day 99: Last night went better than expected. The junior ranks bar had maybe a dozen people in it (the music there is played so loud it hurts your ears so most people avoid it). The Gull and Penguin was a bit more like herding cats with people trying to get one more drink as we are steering them to the door and they try to slip past. The officers were having their summer ball, which since it is winter here makes no sense but weren't any bother. The SNCO's were the worst although no one was trouble. They were just having to keep each other upright and trying to do The Ministry of Silly Walks (see Monty Python if you don't get the reference). Spent today getting my Japanese troops painted. They are almost ready to start getting put together. Still thinks the camo on the tank looks a mess though. The clearing up the drunks wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The junior ranks bar was pretty empty. I suspect that comes down to the music being played so loud in there that it is actually painful on your ears. Other than going on an hour later than usual the officers mess summer ball wasn't too bad either. As it often seems to be down here the only problem area was with clearing out the SNCO's most of whom had to be held upright by slightly less drunk companions. Got back in the room about half past midnight which was earlier than expected.

Day 100: The warrant came into look at the progress on the gizzits for the Major and the Wing Commander. The Majors is completed and the Wing Co's is as ready as I can get it until the wooden plinth it is going to be based on arrives. Loz phoned up station workshops to check on the progress and they told him it would cost £10 and wouldn't now be ready until at least Friday. We passed that on to the warrant and he phoned them up, pointed out since he was also their warrant that it was his wood and it wouldn't be costing anything and they would have it ready no later than Wednesday morning since it is supposed to be getting presented to them on Friday. The warrant came in to look at the dioramas and decided he was removing the Iron Man Pingu and going to replace it with a shop bought penguin. He also managed to break a couple of other things when touching them and decided on extra things he'd like added / changed. Had a few drinks with Ali down The Dolphin. All the cpls seem to be a bit frayed and on edge at the moment. We are all around the half way point of our tours and I think a combination of that and seemingly endless crap jobs are getting to us. I feel fine as soon as I am out of work, but from the moment our bosses turn up until we escape you can see it in people’s eyes.

Day 101: The Wing Commanders car needed its weekly checks today, but the Wing Co wanted to use his car and wouldn't give me the keys. Approximately every half hour Moggy asked me to see if I could get the keys and weekly the vehicle. Even if I had just checked five minutes before hand. By the end of the day I was very close to having a sense of humour failure.

Day 102: Again with the Wing Co's car. Eventually got it late in the afternoon but two days of constantly being reminded about a job I hadn't forgotten about has really been getting on my nerves. Oh, and surprisingly the warrant managed to break some more of the gizzits when he was looking at them. The wooden plinth to base the second one on did arrive as promised. I've glued all the bits that are ready into place. Went down to the music club and had a bass guitar lesson. It didn't start so well when they started playing Thunderstruck and asked me to join in. I explained that the last time I had any kind of guitar lesson was around 28 years ago and I couldn't remember it very well so got some tab music sheets to learn from. I stood there with the guitar and went "plink plonk" all the way through Enter Sandman. At the end of it I felt another bucket list item was now crossed off. As we had a lead guitarist, a drummer and me on bass I feel that fulfils the tick in the box for play an instrument in a band. Never said it had to be played well, or with an audience. We went for a couple of drinks afterwards and both came to the conclusion that whereas normally its officers who make life difficult for people with impossible demands, down here its SNCO's & Warrants.

Day 103: Came in this morning and went to look at the gizzits. Some of the bits I had super glued in place had been broken off and a couple of large penguins have been stood in the corners. I didn't even bother asking who had done it. Was busy all morning doing car stuff. I used to want to ban most cars and get people to use public transport based on ecological reasons. Now I'd like to ban them as I have come to f**king hate, nay loath the very sight of them. The more they get me to work on cars, the more my hatred grows. Came back into work and the warrant hurried over to me to tell me he'd messed up something on the gizzit. There is a back board on the Wing Commanders that on the rear has got everyone from the sections signatures and little good luck messages. On the front of it, it’s done up with a whole load of what are called spiders. You write a problem in the middle, put an oval round it and lots of lines coming off it and write the related issues. I'd done about half the board on them. The Warrant had decided to write the other half while I was at lunch. After writing them he decided he didn't like what he had written and wanted it all changed. He wanted me to rip all the stuff off the front of the balsa wood (basically I'd stuck brown paper to the front) and redo it all. I said no I can fix it and he asked if I wanted him to do it. Had to say a couple of times that I could fix it before he let it be. Then he told me that he'd gotten black paint on his hands and didn't know where from. With a sigh I told him that would be from the fuel bowser (which he accidently broke the hose off after I'd spend almost an hour getting attached to the model), but decided to change the fuel bowser into a Snow & Ice sweeper. I'd put a snow plow on the front and a boom on the back and even an operator’s platform. He complained the snow plow was too high up and tried to rip it off. I explained that the model did not take the glue easily and that position was the one place I could get it to stick to. I had used so much super glue to get it on that he couldn't physically break it off. He complained the platform should be lower. Again I explained that was the only place I could get that bit to stick to as anywhere else it didn't have enough contact with the rest of the model to stay on. Anyway, he mentioned he'd gotten back paint on his hands and I pointed out that the reason the Snow Plow was sitting upside down was because I'd painted the wheels black and was letting them dry. I'd super glued a JCB to the plinth and been told to put some gravel in the scoop, so I poured in some more glue and then put the gravel in. The Warrant started playing with the scoop and I'd to shout "NO! ITS FILLED WITH SUPER GLUE DON'T TIP IT OUT OVER THE WOOD!" He feels I over reacted. Loz was doing another job for him and had to involve a civilian contractor. The contractor hadn't read the email with the work details correctly and somehow the Warrant decided that this was Loz's fault and tried to give him a telling off. Loz countered each point the Warrant brought up and showed how it wasn't him who had messed up, but then made the mistake of turning around to the Warrant and saying "Well next time if you don't like it, you can always ask someone else to do it." At this point Fish shrunk behind his computer screen (at that point there was nothing he could do to help Loz) and with a beckoning finger Loz was taken away for a 20-minute one-way conversation with the Warrant. Did manage to get an hour off work at the end of the day though to do an hour down the gym for the first time since I got here.

Day 104: Someone was driving one of the SIF vehicles along was a little surprised when one of the wheels overtook the rest of the car. As I'm the one whose been tasked with doing most of the maintenance on them I expected to get some crap over that. Not got any torque tools to check the wheel nuts and it’s not in the orders to check them (although I am willing to bet by Monday morning that will have changed), but nothing has been said to anyone. I was hoping they'd decide someone who actually knows anything about cars would now be put in charge of them but no such luck. Despite that though it was actually a very relaxing day. Didn't see the warrant once and the leaving gizzits are all finished. Matt was a bit upset. One of the chiefs came in his office, stopped and said "Oh I can't remember what I came in for". Matt being Matt just said "That's because it must have been something boring". The chief blew his nut at him and started calling him the swear word I try not to use. Several times. Matt tried apologizing to him a few times later on in the day only to get called it again each time. He can't figure out if the chief is serious or just has a very dry sense of humour and he (Matt) is worried about it. Now of course any time Matt says anything, someone turns around to him and says "You know why that is, it's because you are a bleep". If this hasn't made Matt cry by the end of the week I will be surprised. Most people went up to Brintels last night, although since I'd been out drinking a couple of nights already I decided to skip it. All night long I was wishing I'd went after all, but seeing the other guys in the morning I was glad I didn't. Loz especially looked like death warmed up, without the warmed up part. He ended up going into his office, locking the door and going to sleep. I was the only person who could drive as most were still drunk. The West Store was out of Hoagies to Hoagy Friday turned into Pizza Friday instead.

Day 105: Lessons in commanding people in battlefield situations today. The army always seem surprised that we in the air force don't do this stuff. It seems to be beyond them that we fix aeroplanes, we don't generally fight those kind of battles and thus don't have training in even the basics and when we do have to, we wouldn't issue orders in the same way as they do. Being taught by someone whose first language isn't english didn't help either. It took me about the first half hour to figure out his accent and what he was saying. After three hours I was wishing I still couldn't understand what he was saying. Went to get some net time cards to call home, but 12 FAC was sold out already. Will just have to get some from the shop later (which is more expensive). One thing that might surprise people back home is that we were having a discussion the other day and everyone here agrees that they think it’s tougher for our partners back home than it us for us being out here, but just remember baby, you are always in my thoughts and I am always holding you tight in them.

Day 106: Today seemed to go past in a bit of a haze. Not sure where it went to. Did spend it watching Firefly though.

Day 107: Neither me or Ali can remember Saturday morning or any of the lessons we have supposed to have learned. Incredibly busy morning (as Monday mornings tend to be for me) and when people wandered over to my desk to interrupt whatever I was doing they got chased off. Finally told the Warrant that the gizzits were finished (actually completed them on Friday but I didn't want to tell him so he wouldn't go in to have a look at them and break stuff). He is supposed to be presenting them once he gets a cake from the mess, although none of us minions will be there form what we’ve heard. Decided to sign the gizzits though so if anyone else tries to take credit for making them (there is a story behind that) they will end up looking a bit silly. Ryan got back today, met him at the terminal and drove him back to the block. He'd been bursting for the toilet for the last hour. I drove back really slowly and did my best impression of a leaky tap for him. Found out today also that we have a big inspection on Thursday so tonight is a bull night (when we spend the night cleaning and tidying up everything). Trouble is some sections have secret beer stashes, which they can either hide or drink. Spent a large chunk of the day sorting out Kristi coming down for a visit. Got a house sorted for a couple of weeks and just need the flights confirmed. I so can't wait to tickle her again! I am so excited I could sing 'Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows' for seven hours.
Day 108: Weather down here still seems to consist of a) high winds and b) mist. I quite like mist and fog, I also quite like a good blow. You can sit inside while its howling a gale outside and be all nice and warm inside.

Day 109: The gizzits were finally presented today. Was pleasantly surprised that we did get a slice of cake. The Wing Commander seemed to really like his while the Major seemed a bit bemused. The Wing Commander came to see me later to ask about how I'd made it and how long it took me. He also noticed little things I wrote on the white board like 'Pay Rise for Av Techs'.

Day 110: Another bull night. We'll be having one every night until the inspection. There is nothing wrong with the rooms, just the Warrant has decided they will be scrubbed clean each night. Discovered all the PAT (electrical safety) checks were out of date, so being qualified I got the plum job of going around everyone’s room after work to check all their electrics. Took about 40 minutes to do each room. And when I say plum job I do mean it. The others got the joy of cleaning up other people’s fag butts from around the block regardless of wither they smoke or not. They reckoned by the end of the night they'd picked up around 4,000. For any smokers out there, if you are wondering why so many people want it banned, its stuff like this. One of my pillow cases appears to have vanished and the Warrant wasn't happy about the condition of the pillow. I tried hard to put my care face on. Started on the next gizzit, which is a bigger version of the first one I did. Going to do the whole of Timmys' whereas the other one was just the main bar area. Asked the new Flight Sgt how much he wanted to get involved in the design and he said he is happy to totally leave me alone and just present him with the finished product. That did make me feel a whole lot better about making it.

Day 111: The new Wing Commander decided to gather us all up in Timmys' bar and introduce himself. He said he'd spend no more than 2 minutes going over his background. Ten minutes later he finished. I remember him saying he has a background in helicopters then I put on my interested and listening face while Mr Brain switched off what he was saying and started entertaining me by playing some of my favourite music. At the end of it he did the usual bit where they ask what problems and issues the section has and he'd try to sort them out. Some guys bothered to engage with him there, but when they got the stock fobbing people off answers they switched off too. At lunch time we were heading to the mess and a Warrant passed us by. As is standard for a Warrant we said "Morning Sir". After we'd passed him Ryan asked us where he knew him from. We told him he was the Warrant Officer from 1312 Flt and all of a sudden Ryan's face went white and his jaw dropped as a memory from the St Trinians Night came back to him and he blurted out "Oh &^%! I kissed him while I was dressed as a woman!" When Ryan gets excited about something his voice rapidly starts climbing to much higher pitches than usual. He also gets louder. I think there might be some people on mainland South America that didn't hear him cry out, but not many. Apologies to anyone I know in Utah who heard it and thought Yellowstone had finally blown. We have a washing machine at work and every Thursday Matt likes to take his washing in and do it there rather than trying to get a hold of one of the block machines. His (female) boss found out that Matt has a thing for pink underwear when she saw him unloading the machine. As Matt was trying to explain how he found them very comfortable (which surprised me as I thought all the frilly bits would chafe something terrible) as she was making comments about how this was material for Matt's leaving speech (he goes in about 2 weeks). I grabbed Loz and got him to tell her about all the things he'd (Matt) done to him. We have no shortage of comedy gold for that boys leaving speech. All our rooms passed their inspection with flying colours.

Day 113: A Saturday morning spent in work definitely feels like a wasted one. Went out bowling after it though. Moggy came along with a pair of jogging bottoms and a white and blue striped tee shirt. He was greeted with cries of "Andy Pandy called, he wants his shirt back".

Day 114: Ali was again a broken man today and spent most of it curled under his quilt hiding from the world. If I suffered hang overs the way, he does I would never drink. Seen a Facebook post that made me chuckle so shared it. Discovered today that someone I barely know from a game I used to play objected to me doing it as it was one mocking Donald Trump and I am not from the US. Have now resolved to post lots more stuff mocking him (Trump). And let’s face it, he gives the world so much material to work with there.

Day 115: Found out today I can drive off camp as apparently there isn't a rule that says you can only drive off it if you'd had a licence for over a year. And they've arranged for me to drive to Stanley on Wednesday. Gee thanks guys.

Day 116: Got to do a three-way conversation with the bank today to try and sort out everything but our holiday plans are progressing despite the rest of the world's attempts to get in the way. Really wanted to be angry with the customer service guy on the phone but he was being nice and helpful, and he isn't the bank employee who caused the problem so I let Kristi do most of the speaking. After the call finished I still had all the anger I'd built up all morning but no one annoyed me enough for me to take it out on. It had faded by the time I could have used it later when someone who knows a mutual... well someone we both knew. He made a comment about what had happened between me and the other person. Beats me how anyone else can think they know what went on without being there all the time, but as I've been doing for the past couple of year I just ignored the comment and let it slide. Doesn't mean he is right, just that it would take more effort to argue the point than I am willing to make these days. Went to the gym and did 6km on the cross trainer, which isn't my favourite way of exercising but it’s about as close to running as I can get without being in pain for three days afterwards. Anyway, did it at a high resistance and felt vaguely proud at the end of it. My watch decided to fall apart while I was exercising though, the strap broke and the back fell off. Managed to get it fixed later though. Got the welfare house I've booked for Kristi's visit paid for and spoke to police flight about getting her a pass for the visit so all that should be fine. Signed up to do some driving simulators which were offered to us. One is a cross country thing, another is reversing a truck and the last is a drunk driver simulator. The flt lt asked if he could come down to have a laugh at me driving and I told him, no problem sir but just remember if I run you down its 50 points a stripe and you have three of them.

Day 117: Went down the pub again for a quiz last night. We joined with the 1312 flt lads to make a group of 6. Over the other side of the room the blanket stackers had turned up en masse so there was about 30 of them in that team. One of the rounds was to identify what horror films some stills had been taken from. They just handed the sheet of paper to me when that came up. Got ones like The Hills Have Eyes, The Thing, American Werewolf In London and so on, which gave me 7 out of the 10. One I guessed was from the Carrie remake and one I took a stab at with Hostel, but turned out to be The Human Centipede which I was fine with as it’s not a film I've ever cared to watch. The last one had me completely bamboozled though. Was a shot of a guy’s head and I just couldn't think of any horror film I'd seen or heard of that it could be from. Really thought I was losing my touch until someone else identified it as being from a Twilight movie. Really, someone out there counts Twilight as a horror movie? The flt lt came in this morning to ask if he could get a lift somewhere off one of us. Moggy immediately volunteered me (I should mention that a few days before I'd to give the Major a lift. Apparently he was terrified for his life the entire time, but then he is army so being a big girls blouse is expected really). Luckily Loz stepped in and said he'd drive for him. After they'd left I'd to tell Moggy that I wasn't driving this morning as I was still feeling drunk from the night before. I'd only had 6 beers but since I've been drinking less out here than I do back home (which makes me unique on the entire island I think) it's not taking much to get me rather squiffy.
After lunch today we were walking out to the car and Matt's hand shot out into one of Ryan's pockets and grabbed a banana he'd put there. He half peeled it and as Ryan opened his mouth to protest Matt shoved the banana in it. Just about fell over laughing at Ryan's face. We were waiting on Matt's replacement arriving today when we got the air bridge is landing in 15 minutes tannoy. Then half an hour later another tannoy announced that due to high winds the air bridge couldn't land and was diverting. Alex Axton, the sgt in charge of tools will be a bit upset about that I'd imagine as that’s the plane he was supposed to be flying home on tomorrow and that's going to be at least another two days out here for him. That’s the first time we've had that one happen, but I'd imagine the people on the plane will be quite happy about spending a night where ever in South America the diversionary airport is rather than here. Had to make the flt lt a fake moustache for a Tex-Mex night they are having in the officers mess.

Day 118: Loz went out last night and got wrecked. This morning I got up and went to shave as I normally do and found out last night he'd pinned a note to the door saying "Do not wake me up in the morning. With any luck I'll die during the night. Love Loz XX". A whole gaggle of people were gathered around looking at it and complimenting him on his very neat drunk writing. Tried to get him out of bed but eventually had to go into work. His boss wasn't happy with us not getting him up out his bed and into work, but was fine with him being late. Not sure how that works. New Major turned up today with his pet dog. He let it wander around the building. It’s a tiny thing and very quiet. Which is great when you are carrying heavy and expensive bits of kit around and you might have a dog wandering around to trip over. We’ve nicknamed it Fox Rat. Or possibly Rat Fox. Anyway, I most definitely didn't use some black and white model paints to change it from a brown dog to a black and white skunk. Met Matt's replacement today. Turns out he doesn't have three heads and certainly from first impressions seems ok.

Day 119: More theatre reserve training by someone who knows what he is doing but doesn't have english as a first language. Not as boring as the last lesson though based on the standard that during the last one it felt like my brain was trying to run down my ears to escape. No fog or rain today. Instead it snowed. Then it snowed. Then it snowed some more. This was to be a feature of the entire weekend.

Day 120: A continuation of yesterday’s weather even at one point reaching what I'd call a heavy snow (when visibility hits 0). Loz has taken to watching the Olympics almost constantly. I did watch Judo, Rugby and Boxing. Was really disappointed with the Judo competition. They looked more like they were trying to slap each other’s hands the entire time which was a very dull watch. Don't think I saw a proper throw the entire time and eventually gave up, but Loz is watching everything he can including the entirety of Andy Murrays tennis final. Ball goes up the screen, ball goes down the screen. Repeat for four hours. I am pretty sure the interesting highlights could be condensed into maybe 20 minutes and that would be including a half time musical interlude break.

Day 121: Didn't snow today, but it was foggy in the hills (and everywhere here are hills. The locals refer to them as mountains, but there is no way they count as mountains in my book, no pointy bit at the top. I should send them a picture of Norway and let them see a real mountain) and the snow hadn't melted. We were all standing in a line a lunch time just outside work at lunch time with Ali in the middle. There was a woompth type sound as suddenly Ali disappeared from view as all the snow on the roof managed to fall down on exactly where he was standing without touching anyone on either side of him. We didn't let him move until we had all taken photos. Was supposed to drive to Stanley today but the road was closed today, so we will try again tomorrow morning and failing that Wednesday. When I went into work this morning Kristi's flight details still hadn't arrived so went and to speak to the people responsible. Lucky for them they were sorting it out as I walked in. I still have all that built up anger from the bank to take out on someone deserving. Was also Matt's and the Warrants leaving speeches so Matt finally got to find out what I had done to his toothbrush (the line "Vengeance comes shaped short, hairy and hobbit-like" was used). Loz does write a good speech. I'd done Matt a Pingu in record time as I only had about 2 hours to work on it. I got a poster from "Roadhouse", made a model of the (as in the outside of the building, fed up with doing pub interiors) bar from it (The Double Deuce) with a penguin flexing his arms outside it and a speech bubble with "Hey girl, ever wanted your own library? Then come stack some books on these shelfs" (Matt has all sorts of nicknames for his biceps, including (but not limited to) the shelfs, wings, guns, as well as Des & Troy). Things will certainly be quieter when he goes and I guess I might even miss him a little bit. No idea if the rumours about his replacement are true or not and quite frankly I don't consider it to be mine or anyone else’s business, all I am caring about there is wither he can do his job or not, but I have made sure he has been invited when we've been going out and that he is being treated normally.
Damn, when did I become a den mother?
On keys just now, although happily that will be cut short by me going on my R&R for two weeks soon. I could tell my mind wasn't really on my work today and it was taking a lot of extra concentration to make sure it was done right. I wonder if I should let Kristi get out of the airport terminal before I start tickling her? Hmm, in fact I wonder if the ground crew would let me on the aircraft before she can even get out of her seat... I mean if she is buckled in then there is no escape!

Day 122: Physically I might have been in work today, but mentally I was already on my R&R. Prepped things in advance and sent out my stuff for the next two weeks early. Paid for the hire car for this weekend. Hopefully the Stanley road will be open by then, but if not I will figure out some other way of keeping Kristi amused.

Day 123: Kristi's journey starts today. Looking forward to seeing her tomorrow :) Went shopping today to make sure we had a few days’ food in. Also made sure I got the biggest bar of chocolate for her I could find and a big tub of her favourite ice cream. Got a phone call telling me I could pick up the keys for the house I'd booked for us. It sort of went "Hi this is Sgt Name Redacted, the welfare officer. You can come get the keys for your house now. They will be at the reception in 12 FAC.", Me "Ok, thanks. Is the house in the estate over the road from 12 FAC?", Sgt "No, it’s not there." Me "Ah, ok where is it then?", Sgt "You go in the main doors and it’s the big desk on the left." Me "No, I know where 12 FAC is, I was asking where the house is." Sgt "Its two or three minutes away." Me "Excuse me, but by any chance are you an army sgt?" "Yes, how did you know?"... Eventually I found the house was waaaay down the other end of camp. It’s quite a nice little place, three bedrooms, pretty big living room and enough kitchen drawers to keep even Hali happy. And the garden is perfectly rectangular which would suit Marc (hey guys I think I've found the perfect house for you). Joy of joys it has a bath. No more showering with three other guys at a time in a stainless steel box for a few weeks for me. I ran a very deep bath (including of course some bubble bath) and lay in it until the water went cold. Then I refilled it with hot water and lay in it some more. I also picked up some bread and cheese so I've been having toasted cheese. I guess after 4 months of not having these things my standards have fallen somewhat as it felt like total hedonism. However, being an electrician and very aware of why electricity and water shouldn't be mixed I didn't slice up some cheese then daisy chain 6 multi blocks so I could take the toaster into the bath room and make cheese and toast while I was in the bath. Also picked up some baby cream so I can give Kristi a long massage when she gets here. Since I am in an isolated house surrounded by snow I decided it was the perfect time to dig out an old classic and watch one of John Carpenters best movies. The Ghost of Mars (heh, no actually The Thing. I can just imagine any Carpenter fans out there spitting out a mouthful of coffee reading that). I also have no internet or mobile phone access here. I am liking it more and more.

Day 124: Woke up and just enjoyed not having to get out of bed right off. I did pop into work to borrow a car so I could pick her up and not drag her the mile and a half through the snow with her luggage to the house. I went to leave the house about 10 minutes before her flight was due to land and saw it coming into land. Had such a big smile on my face at the sight of it. Collected her, quickly introduced her to the people at work (my place of work is right beside the terminal), then back to the house for our first private time in 4 months. We had ice cream for dinner.

Day 125: Heavy snow continues to fall. I don't think the Stanley road will be open this weekend. Did some shopping and picked up some stuff from my room. Kristi asked which bed was Loz's and proceeded to apple turnover his bed sheet. Went up for Hoagie Friday and introduced Kristi to the people I work with. They've been invited to dinner tomorrow night. Ryan has been unhappy that whenever anyone gets introduced to him he gets called "Rapey Ryan". I made sure I introduced him as Ryan, but Kristi turned around and said "Ah yeah, you are the one who keeps getting drunk and trying to rape my husband."

Day 126: Turns out I am not a fan of back seat drivers. Took Kristi up to West Store for a hoagie. I warned her not to get the spicy sauce and for once she actually listened to me first time on something. I have noted this day in my diary.

Day 127: Weather has improved however as we've been unable to get Kristi's pass sorted out getting her back on camp if we left would be a problem. It’s a real shame as it would have been nice to drive out at night just to see the stars as the sky was really clear and you don't have to go far to get away from light pollution.

Day 128: Went to see the remake of Pete's Dragon. Wow, that’s a melancholy film. Reminded me a lot of the film of Where the Wild Things Are. While it’s not a sad movie as such the colour palate is very drained and dull, while sad music plays all the way through it. I suspect people will cry watching it without actually realising why.

Day 129: Took Kristi on the hour long drive into Stanley. She was happy enough with me driving but I don't think she was overly impressed with the town itself.

Day 130: Went to see Suicide Squad. Enjoyed it although I thought Will Smith's character was a bit dull and had too much screen time.

Day 131: Was supposed to be doing some driving today, some off roading type stuff. MT had changed the dates though and we hadn't been told.

Day 132: Went into the local Starb... I mean Coffee Forum. Wasn't for coffee though, we just wanted the internet access. Checked up on emails and whatnot. Had one of the women I know from the med centre around for dinner. She had been stood up for a date to go see Suicide Squad the same night we went so I'd invited her to join us instead. She is supposed to be coming home on the same flight as me after two years out here. Ouch, I'd hate to spend that length of time out here. Trouble is everyone who is qualified to replace her seems to be getting out of coming here. On the other hand, she has PVR'd so is going to be out of the forces in 6 months anyway so it's not like they can just keep her out here. Taught her how to play Zombies!!! As a thank you her and Kristi teamed up against me and got me killed multiple times.

Day 133: Finally got all the postcards I picked up months ago written out and posted today. Went up to work to book out a vehicle for Monday only to discover it was Friday and lunch time, so went for Hoagie Friday since we were up here anyway. Decided to rebel a bit though and have ham and pineapple pizza instead of a Hoagie since Ali hates the sight of pineapple of pizza. Decided to cook dinner tonight. Picked out some chicken kiev, onion rings and spring rolls. Everything I picked gets done in the oven but for different times and temperatures. Have decided to send an email to all the food company's telling them to get together and sort out a standard time and temperature for all food to be cooked at or I would come after them in the dark of night. Since previous experience has taught me that those kind of emails tend to lead to visits from serious people in uniforms different to mine I decided to send them from one of my friend’s email accounts (you know who you are, the one with the stupidly hackable password). Anyway, women of the world I hope you enjoy the efforts I have went to just to make cooking easier for you (everything is easier with man logic). :) No need to thank me, it’s all part of the service.

Day 134: Got Kristi watching Fringe. It's really winding her up that thanks to the lack of internet access she can't just go and google what happens in the show. Of course I do not torture her about this ever. Heh heh heh. She is especially unimpressed that I managed to get enough access to go look at the wiki for it (I was checking how many seasons there were, I already know what happens in the last episode thanks to a spoiler).

Day 135: Did plan on going out today to do some wild life spotting. Alas the wind and rain had other ideas and all the roads were closed. It was too wet and wild for us even just to go for a walk outside. Kristi is in trouble for burning her fingers when trying to move hot metal things in the cooker. Got a bit of a sore back from lying in bed much longer than I would normally. It’s just so good to get to cuddle in the mornings though.

Day 136: Kristi baked a cake for the people back at work. Took it up to them and did a couple of other admin things getting ready for her leaving tomorrow. The air attack alarm went off while we were walking along. Shrugged my shoulders and told Kristi not to worry, it was most likely a test to check it is working. The sky is looking like it is preparing for a heavy downpour so we are debating on going down to Bertha's Beach or not. It’s a couple of hours walk to get to see any wildlife though.

Day 137: Finally got a clear sky last night so I drove out to the middle of nowhere so Kristi could see the stars. Wasn't hard to get away from the light pollution. The sky was amazingly clear. We tried taking some photo's but the cameras on our phones weren't quite up to the task. We went to bed for an early night but we were too busy being silly to get to sleep. Up early to take Kristi up to the terminal and see her off. The flight back turned out to be about £100 less than we expected, although we couldn't pay by card so had to run back to the NAAFI to get some cash back. Anyway, she is now on her way back to the UK and the rest of summer. I'll join her just in time for winter. My room light has started flashing on and off constantly. I could report it and get it fixed, but it’s more fun to see how much it disturbs other people when they come in my room.
Before she left Kristi was telling me about how I'd be experiencing my first Black Friday when I am on holiday. Should be interesting.
Anyway, getting around to doing my British WW2 army. Can't decide what list to go with though. I'd have like to have done a Commando force, but they don't get tanks and armoured vehicles are the way to any war gamers heart.

Day 138: Back at work today, actually felt much fairly upbeat about it, I got my replacements contact details and it feels like the end is in sight. Got some e-blueys written and sent off. Since I've ran out of Fringe episodes I've started watching Chuck.

Day 139: There is a top table event on tonight which I am avoiding since I am trying not to drink alcohol. Both Ali and Ryan have found their ties have vanished. Ali suspects the SNCO's snuck in and stole them so they could fine them. They kept coming in and asking if they could borrow a tie from me. Just a shame I didn't bring any with me. Ali managed to find one off one of the 1312 lads. I nicknamed this particular guy 'Windows' because if you leave him alone for 5 minutes he goes into shutdown mode staring blankly into the middle distance. I suspect he is a robot sent back from the future. Only instead of Skynet, he was programmed by Microsoft. Means the world is a lot safer from intelligent robots taking over as they will constantly get the blue screen of death and need to purchase an update to get it to sort of work properly Anyway I digress. It was a bright gold colour and looked like it had been used as a nest by a family of hyperactive hedgehogs. Matches his dark gray shirt in the same way golf carts are matched for off road rallying (although there was that time we had a team building day at work where we all went golfing. There was alcohol involved and it turns out that golf carts can be used for off-roading. And our section was banned from that golf course).

Day 140: As per usual the rest of the guys are suffering somewhat after last night. Thom in particular looks like an extra from The Walking Dead. I kept walking up to him and shouting "LOUD NOISES!", then walking away. My laptop wouldn't connect to the internet so I restarted it. It kept going through the initial BIOS but not starting up windows. Thought the hard drive had became disconnected so opened it up, but that was fine. Ended up having to pretty much do a factory settings reinstall, which has solved the starting up issue, but it is running noticeably slowly and freezes a lot. As I was trying to contact Kristi and see she was ok since she was in the hospital this was causing me some issues. It was Ryan's leaving do tonight and welcome drinks for his replacement Ted, which I missed as trying to get in touch with Kristi was much more important. Ended up borrowing Loz's laptop when he got back from the pub. Kristi was still awake and was all fine, so I sent her to bed to get some sleep.

Day 141: Went out to Onion Range to do some shooting. We'd to wear body armour and our helmet which wouldn't have been an issue but when we were in the prone position the neck of the body armour would push my helmet forward which would then push my glasses down. The range took most of the day too complete thanks to our MT driving backing the truck we were all in the back on into another one. A grab handle at the side got bent over and jammed the tailgate shut so we had to climb up and over it to get out. The range turned out to be a barren peaty hillside. We got to lie in the wet peat while shooting which was about as fun as it sounds. Or possibly less fun. My knees and elbows did let me know later that night they hadn't appreciated lying in puddles.

Day 142: Back at work for a regular day and catching up on the normal stuff that didn't get done yesterday. Took one of our Land Rovers for its weekly, but the lights weren't working so put it in for repair. Got bored so took some of the fart putty Kristi sent me and rigged Ted’s chair with it so every time he moves in his seat everyone things he has let one rip.

Day 143: Got our shift pattern for covering QRF. We'll be doing a day in normal work, a 24 shift covering QRF and then a day in stand down. When Ali did it, he had to do a 24 shift on, then a day off, and then another 24-hour shift for the week so we've not done too badly there. You can tell it’s the army who is normally in it from the condition of the building. I am on the third section so I get to have a day off, then do my first QRF on Saturday.

Day 144: Took a stroll down to the library and booked out some bad looking horror movies, although one of them (Sand) turned out to be pretty good. I am going to keep an eye out for it and add it to my collection when I get back home.

Day 145: A Saturday spent working. Yay. Me and the other cpl on it are doing 4-hour turnabout shifts. Watched some boxing matches on the TV. Kell Brook did better than I expected, but going up two weight divisions and taking on a good world champion was never going to go in his favour. Didn't fancy sleeping on one of the communal army bunk beds, so grabbed a couple of hours’ kip on a couch.

Day 146: The weather is generally improving. Quite a nice day today. I got home at 08:00 and then slept until 11:20ish. For a change Loz had to creep around the room quietly while I slept.

Day 147: In work again. Put another Land Rover in for repair when I discovered an oil leak (from the timing casing if this means anything to anyone). Luckily the other one is back now or we'd be having real problems. Got asked why I didn't hide it by wiping the oil up. If they want that kind of thing done, they are going to have to get someone else too weekly them. Besides the more time they spend in getting repaired the less I have to do weekly’s on them. Almost tempted to find something wrong with every vehicle I check, but that would only mean I'd have to walk to and from work. Normally I'd be fine with that, but the weather out here isn't generally pleasant to walk in. Moggy wanted me to take one of the SIF vehicles into Stanley for repair tomorrow, but I'd to point out to him that I was on QRF.

Day 148: Second and final shift on QRF. It's not difficult, just boring. I have made a big dent in the books on my kindle though. Shame my laptop isn't working, that would have helped to pass the time. Kristi has a new one on its way to me though as I really want to be able to speak to her this Sunday.

Day 149: Got my core British army painted up. The stuff I have got left isn't quite going to tide me over until I go home so ordered some new stuff. Got a Universal Carrier section, a QF 17 pounder, some Gurkhas and a forward observer. Random fact for you. Universal carriers are the most produced armoured vehicle in history. I'd never heard of them before I started playing WW2 wargames though and I am pretty sure I'd never seen one in any war film.

Day 150: Handed in our rifles today. We have one night of freedom where we can drink before we have to start a week on Theatre Reserve tomorrow. I've not been feeling much like mixing with people this week so I stayed in while the rest of them went drinking. Spoke on the phone to my replacement of course sounds very enthused about coming out here. He likes to ride his bike a lot, doing at least 22 miles a day. He asked if we had any bikes out here. I told him we did but he'd be better off bringing his own one out with him. Even they guy who fixed them up doesn’t trust them enough to try riding them.

Day 151: My last week on TR before I go home. We took Ted over for his first Hoagie. He is a heavy smoker and drinks like a thing that drinks a lot. Reckons guys like him aren't made to last long. I have to agree with him there. When we got back from lunch I was sitting at my desk and suddenly out of nowhere had to fight the urge to just burst into tears. It was a tough day to get through and I am not looking forward to Sunday.

Day 152: It might only have been a morning in work but it seemed to drag on forever. Didn't have much work to do and had less enthusiasm to do it so I made some good excuses and palmed it off until Monday where I'll train Ted up on it. Since we only get an hour or so handover with our replacements arriving late in the afternoon and us leaving early the next morning I need to train Ted up in my job so he can train my replacement. I'd started to feel a bit stir crazy last night so when I was invited to go play cards with the guys I decided to make a bit of an effort and join them. Of course since gambling isn't allowed we didn't all take our change tubs in (can't remember the name of the game we were playing, but you get dealt a card which you look at and then place a bet based on the value of that card. You then make a bet up to the value of a pot (although as I mentioned we played without the gambling part, honest) the dealer has put in and have to challenge the dealer. Standard keep it under 21). I managed to get a 5 card trick and thought I'd won big but it turns out you don't get 5 card tricks in it. We also hadn't smuggled beers in from Stanley and we didn't go to the pub and get smashed either.

Day 153: Its a year now since the worst day of my life. Turned out to be easier to get through than I thought. Friday was a lot tougher. I've been saving up my Wi-Fi cards so I had 8 ready to spend the entire day chatting with Kristi. I really wish we could have spent the day together but we both coped with it better than we thought we would.

Day 154: Mike finally managed to copy me some prints from the Mid-Winter Swim back in June. He is having to grow a beard as he was in the toilet a couple of days ago and collapsed smacking his head off the urinal. Haven’t heard what caused him to faint, hopefully he is going to be ok. Sally is also heading off early. A few weeks ago everyone piled on top of her when she’d fallen over drunk at Timmys’. Her arm was pretty sore then next day but she didn’t get it checked out for a couple of weeks but it turned out she’d broken it so she is off on the next flight. Got what pretty much amounts to my report card for my how I have done on the detachment. Reads pretty well. It doesn’t have all the stuff I’ve done while I am here and it has other stuff I really don’t remember doing, or have any clue what they are talking about but it says good things and I guess that is all it needs to say. Found out someone emailed a picture of Woody at the swim to his home base. Apparently he is none too happy about his man boobs being on display. I have no idea who might have sent that picture…

Day 155: If you are looking for a good laugh Sausage Party is quite a good film, although it does pretty much have constant swearing, so if stuff like South Park offends you then don’t go near it. I wasn’t laughing every time someone swore, but lots of people in the audience were, but there were still enough funny jokes to keep me amused. We had Ali’s last Continuous Improvement meeting today. Ryan’s replacement, Ted (his second name is Rodgers, people from the UK of a certain age will get the reference) came with a whole list of things that he wants to change. Second on the list was that he didn’t want to be the one who does the work for the changes. He assigned me a job, but I’d stopped listening at the point where he said he wanted other people to do his work for him. I have no idea what job it is he wants me to do but come the next meeting after we have all left he is going to be very disappointed.

Or maybe it is a s**t movie and after all this time out here, my standards have fallen.

Day 156: Spoke to Ali today about the jobs Ted had dished out. Turns out I am not the only one who has no intention of doing the jobs Ted was handing out. Got some work done of the SNCO’s table piece. The bar has been built and glued in place, and I’ve sculpted 3 figures. One of the flt sgt who asked me to make it as a penguin, one of Fish and one of Mike, which has him just collapsed in a heap at the side of bar after his random passing out in the toilet.

Day 157: Ted has gone into overdrive and is now trying to recruit all the junior ranks in a protest against us having to use plastic cutlery. He has made up a list of all the accidents you could have with plastic forks. The comments books in the mess now has a page stuck to the front saying no more comments are to be made about plastic cutlery, so they are now putting in paperwork called Informs where you raise a problem with higher command about it. Our flight sgt sent out an email to all the junior ranks in his section saying “Look guys I can see I am going to get a lot of these, so here is one all filled out, just sign your name at the bottom, email it back to me and I’ll pass them all up the chain of command.” For myself I consider there to be many problems and issues out there and plastic cutlery isn’t ever going to feature high on my list of things that stop me getting to sleep at night. It’s a pain in the butt yes, but of all the things you could try and fix in this world… If I was going to try and get anything sorted it would be better access to people back home, do something about the crappy internet. Still fair play to him if he thinks he can do some good.

Day 158: Last day on theatre reserve. Handed in my phone and now I no longer have to worry about being called out to deal with any Argentinian invasions. Ted has his first theatre reserve training to look forward to tomorrow. We decided to tell him that means he’ll be in classrooms all day tomorrow instead of just the morning so he will lose his chance to go into Stanley and pick up some crates of ‘cheese’ (cheese is a code word for something else). We also made sure to tell him just how painful the lessons from the Gurkhas are.

Day 159: “My time here is getting short, less than three weeks to go. Only a few of us are left now. The others are all gone, in the night. That’s when they come mostly.”
A Saturday off work. Seems like a long time since I last had one of these. Didn’t manage to get a spot on the helicopter trip out to Volunteer Point today which is a shame so instead I am watching Sharknado 4. I think they cut the budget on this one. Almost finished painting up by British army. Decided not to include any Lend Lease vehicles and just go with a purely British / Commonwealth force, although I wouldn’t have minded adding a Sherman Firefly (which to me was the 3rd best tank of WW2, but that’s just my opinion, I’d put the Panther first, then the T-34). Got some exciting stuff planned for today… Let’s see I have a washing to do, I need to walk down to the other end of the complex to go to the big NAAFI (ask Kristi).

[Alex]

Day 160: Loz went out last night and got drunker than he has been since we first arrived. Ended up having to sit up with him until about 4 this morning listening to his problems. Think I saved his marriage when I refused to let him call his wife as what he wanted to say I am pretty sure would have ended it.
We went out for a drive down to Darwin House / Goose Green which is a narrow strip of land connecting the northern and southern halves of East Island. There was a fair sized battle at it, then on to San Carlos where our troops landed to liberate the islands. Got some nice photos of the area, particularly Bomb Run Alley. Driving around I think we saw about 3 people outside. We drove through villages that looked like cannibal families lurk in them feeding on unwary passersby or strange religious cults. All the scenery on the island continues to be the same colours. If it’s a plant, then it is either light brown or dark brown. Anything is a grey rock. Still not seen any penguins. The landscape looks very bleak. I’d like to say it looks nice or something, but words like barren always spring to mind. I’ve seen all sorts of different landscapes and they generally have their own beauty, but the best I can say about here is that it is dramatic. Maybe it looks better in the summer with better light.

Day 161: It feels so close to getting home I can almost taste it. Still too damn long though. Much has been missed back home, things I wanted to be home for, people I want to see again. I think I’ll be spending some time next summer travelling around the UK to catch up with them. Not sure any job that keeps you away from family is one worth having. 

Day 162: When we went for breakfast this morning the usual grab of hard boiled eggs for munching on through the day went on. Ted decided to have one with his breakfast, but when he peeled the shell off, inside was, well let’s just say it hadn’t been boiled for long enough. Remember this, it might be important later.
Some squadron leader was coming to look at the SIF vehicles this afternoon so I got asked to put all of them in a row in the same car park (I mean seriously; this is the kind of exciting job you get to do). They even got lined up in alphabetical / numerical order of their license plates. Did that in the morning, then got told someone had driven off in one of the cars from the middle of the row (this may also be important later) and could I go reorder them (WTF! Anyway, went out, put a car from the end of the row into the gap in the middle (yes I know this ruined the careful order but I decided I didn’t care). Anyway, walked into Mandy’s office and told her that I had filled her hole. This didn’t quite sound the way I had meant it and ended up with her coffee coming out of her nose. To the best of my knowledge the sqn ldr failed to notice wither the cars had been lined up in order or not as no one said anything about it afterwards.
The car that had been moved from the middle of the row was returned after the inspection and we found it had a flat tire. Loz went out to fix it, but forgot about the not quite hard boiled eggs in this pocket when he lay down on the ground to change the wheel. This left the front of his uniform plastered in gooey egg. Wasn’t too bad while it was still moist, but once it all dried he looked like he’d been Ron Jeremy’s money shot target (and if anyone out there doesn’t know what that means, trust me and don’t go googling it. Your eyeballs will never forgive you. If you do insist on finding out, well at least make sure there are no children nearby).
Anyway, told you both the eggs and car would be important later.

Day 163: When we subscribed to Netflix a year or so ago, I noticed a series of shows called ‘Ted Talks’. That was certainly accurate, he rarely shuts up and it is always about how great he is or how we went and sorted out all these other people who did things he didn’t like. Trouble is the more he talks the less I listen. I am glad he wasn’t part of the group I spent the majority of my six months with. I don’t actively dislike him, but I don’t want to spend any more time with him than I have to.

Day 164: Played Dead Of Winter down the gaming club. As per usual the last surviving colony of people was doomed, but it’s the kind of game where you just have to keep trying again. It is possible to win the game; it just happens rarely. Our problem this time was that we kept finding extra survivors without losing anyone. By the last turn we had no more spaces for people at the colony along with more survivors in other locations. We just couldn’t feed everyone and kill enough zombies, even after one random event where we decided to eat a survivor. Well I say one survivor, but since it provided enough food to feed 10 people either he was very big (well, granted he was called Big Earl) or we bumped off a few extra. Soylent Green FTW! (that one is safe to google, but it does spoil the movie).

Day 165: Another flat tire requiring changing. Makes 4 in the past 8 days. We made a deal with MTW that they would fix the punctures for us rather than us having to buy new ones on the condition that we supplied a packet of biscuits for each tire they fixed. At this rate no one from MTW is going to benefit from the gym down here, although if a zombie apocalypse does happen while I am down here, I know where I’ll be going to find some Big Earls…
Paul Manuel (one of the chiefs in QCIT) is leaving tomorrow. He looks very much like Goofy, a likeness which isn’t helped by him wearing hats with long ear warmers hanging down the sides. Mandy and Moggy are both going home for their two weeks R&R (since both of them work at Brize Norton this makes it much quicker for them to get home than me), so they will come back on the flight that I leave on the next day. Chances are I won’t see them again before I go home so said my farewells and wished them well. The thought of getting out of this damn place is finally starting to feel real.
Day 166: I have spent this entire week thinking whatever day it was, is one day ahead of where we really are. Two weeks today I will be in the air, heading home. Can’t wait for that. To everyone who has sent me letters and messages while I’ve been out here, thanks. You have no idea how much it helps. I’ve replied where possible and sorry to anyone I’ve not been able to get a letter off to.
Been feeling very drained recently. All the things back home that’s happened while I’ve been out here I’d had to put off thinking about while I’ve been here as much as possible. Now it’s time to let it all out.
The onslaught on Informs everyone put in about plastic cutlery has been answered. The result is… we are still going to have to eat with plastic cutlery. Only instead of being told that verbally we got a written reply, so if they think that is an improvement then well done to Ted and his crusaders. Thats what I call really making a difference!
Heading into Port Stanley after work tomorrow. Thom is coming and is going to drive so the rest of us can drink. It’s Ali’s leaving doo, so going to make an effort, be sociable and go with them.

Day 167: Got woken up last night about half past midnight. Some drunk guy was convinced that my room was his. He has punching and kicking the door trying to get in. Loz slept through it until he heard me shouting at the guy telling him to… go away. Later on Loz mentioned that was the first time he’d heard me swear. Eventually one of the orderly cpls came along and moved him on. Hardly anyone was in work today. The SNCO’s mess had a cheese and wine night last night so they were all MIA and it was just us cpls hanging around. Our trip into Stanley went well from what I can remember of it. I decided that I really needed to get drunk so started powering my way through rum and cokes as quickly as I could. Which is pretty damn quick. I can remember having to get Thom to stop the car on the way home so I could go throw up, and falling down the hill at the side of the road but I don’t remember getting back to camp. Of course the guys were all super supportive and took pictures of me throwing up.

Day 168: Loz was amazed that yet again I don’t have a hangover. Ali is suffering one quite badly as per his usual thing. Doing orderly cpl tonight. Should be quiet as not many people drink on a Sunday night.
Doing 31 days of Halloween where you have to watch a horror film every night. Last night was The Thing, tonight it’s the turn of The Creature From The Black Lagoon. Last night was nice and quiet although we did have to do some patrols around the blocks. I’ve had no reason to wander around the other blocks before so it was my first time seeing how the others live. Damn, but some of those are real ghettos. The directions we were given included lines like “Turn left at the spray painted phallus”. Holes in walls, wiring hanging down from the ceilings and bad smells abound (the army zone).

Day 169: Quite a nice day today. When we were going to work we could see clouds coming over the top of Mt Pleasant. It’s my favourite view around here and one we get to see quite often. It makes a change from the endless light browns, dark browns and grays that we see otherwise. Decided to go with The Black Death. Not perhaps the most traditional of horror movies, but I like it.
We’ve been using one of the SIF wagons to get about for the past few days since one of our land rovers is still broken (leaking oil from the timing casing). One of the fan belts isn’t quite 100% and it screams a fair bit until its warmed up so it’s been nicknamed The Banshee, or the Wailing Wagon of Doom. Somehow that makes me think it would be perfectly suited to Mette.

Day 170: Got some signatures on my clearance paperwork for going home and some of my miniatures posted off. Picked up Stranger Things after Mark Wanless recommended it to me, only on episode 4 but getting into it. Went to do my weapons handling test today, but the SNCO said since I’ll be doing CCS when I get back anyway it was pointless doing it now only to have to do it again as part of CCS. Or Module 1 as it is now known.
Cut the base out for the SNCO’s big centre piece. Forcing myself to finish it, although I really don’t care if it is or isn’t. We were looking at the section photo today that Elle took back in May, only 3 people on it are still here, the rest… well I guess you can thank the penguins for the them. Loads of new people have arrived, but we aren’t even bothering to learn their names. Won’t be around long enough to remember them.
Kane went to the barbers yesterday. What he looks like now is hard to explain. It kinda looks like a really big bird did an auburn coloured poop on his head after it had been shaved. He asked if it could not be a topic of conversation for the rest of the day. That didn’t really work out for him. I do feel a little bit of pity for him as he just can’t come up with any witty come backs.
I am so going to get my feathers out and tickle Kristi when I get home. I can see me spending several hours just doing that. Running them slowly over the soles of her feet. And then I am going to asking her if she has an itchy nose while she is too busy laughing to be able to scratch it. Then when we go on holiday I think I will have to enlist all the nieces and nephews to join in a tickle fest. I have such sights to show you my dear. 
Figured out the clothes I need for the rest of the week and packed everything else away. Give 5 minutes’ notice I’d be ready to be on the way home.

Day 171: Ted got another answer to his repeated requests for metal cutlery. Still not happening, but fair play to his perseverance. A new guy has arrived, nicknamed Tank, which could be down to him spending time in the gym but I am going to go with its because his first name is Thomas (the tank engine). He has also picked up a new nickname here, Son of Stan or just SOS for short since they both have ‘taches with waxed curled ends on them. Went out for a few drinks to say goodbye to Ali and hello to Tank. We stopped in at The Dolphin for a few, then went up to Brintels but they decided they were having an invites only night and all of us (14 in all) got turned away. Given how much money Loz has put behind that bar in the past six months it was a bit of a shock, especially as Brintels is not an easy bar to get to. We’d got a lift in a random mini bus that happened to be passing but that had vanished when we went back out the bar. I was getting ready to just walk back (to be fair it would only be a 30 minute walk, but  there are no lights anywhere for the first ten minutes and it was a moonless and cloudy night. Luckily a random Land Rover drove by and we managed to get a lift back in it (just don’t ask me how you get fourteen people in a Land Rover designed for five. We ended up in the Gull & Penguin where Loz and Ted just walked off leaving Ali & Tank while they joined the SNCO’s. Felt pretty bad for the guys being ignored like that so I sat with them. Eventually Ali said he was going to swallow his pride and we went over to join the others.

Day 172: ‘Ali is gone now too. It’s just me and Loz left. We don’t know how much longer we can avoid the penguins, but we are working on an escape plan. Might not make it out, but I am not letting those black and white death machines take me without a fight’.
The computer system I am use at work decided not to work today. Everyone else’s terminal was fine. I’ll try and get it fixed before I leave. Did look into a few bits and pieces so the day wasn’t totally wasted. Found out we have one of the big station wide FOD plods tomorrow. Given how bad the weather is today I am hoping it either clears up or is cancelled. Got my last package from Kristi today. Had some awesome stuff in it that gave me an excellent idea for a joke to play on someone when we go over to the states. We both know who the someone is, but I am going to add an element of suspense by not giving them advance warning of it. :D
Had my last Hoagie Friday today. Went with the 12” Deluxe (ham, chicken, beef & cheese lightly toasted then onions, tomato & cucumber added when it comes out of the grill (I always like to include some vegetables to give the meat someone to look at) but for a change I decided to leave out the Hoagie Sauce). Tonight’s horror movie is going to be ‘Digging Up The Marrow’.
Felt like getting pizza tonight. Was going to ask Ali if he wanted to join me then I remembered… Those penguins have a lot to answer for.
The big coke fridge in the bar has packed in and stopped working, which is a bit of a problem since its supposed to be keeping most of our beer cold tomorrow.
The closer we get to our leaving day the more impatient we get for it.

Day 173: Last Saturday in work. Not much was happening, so we grabbed some fridges that Oasis was getting rid of, so we have two tower fridges that will replace the coke one and also got 3 smaller fridges so we can have one in each of our rooms. Just as we left some army guys turned up looking to ask if they could have the fridges. Sorry, but too slow guys (see Smouty, everything really is better in the RAF). Apparently there is a big forces Ice Hockey tournament coming up, will have to see if I can get some for Sarah.
We had to move the other fridges about. Ted came along and started telling everyone how it could have been done better as is his usual shtick, you could see Loz was getting increasingly irritated with him. Well everyone but Ted nopticed, but Loz telling him to just shut up (not using those words) got the point through.
Got asked at the last minute if I would mind getting in my uniform and being up at Timmys’ tonight as they’ve only just realized this is required in orders and the bar management has only just noticed. Turned them down on the basis that I just didn’t fancy it. I’ve heard the playlist the DJ has came up with for tonight and I’d rather avoid that. I’ve done some my socializing for this week and want some time to myself so decided being selfish was going to work tonight. Besides I’ve said yes every other time I’ve been asked to do something.
Got asked if I could put my diary onto a word document and email the whole thing to someone. Just as well I already have that. To save net time I write it on word, then log in to FB and cut and paste it, although the word document does have some extra bits that I decided not to put online to save other people’s blushes. Tonight, I am going to relax, pretend I have a beer and watch The Thing.

Day 174: Was doing a washing last night. Went to check on my tee shirts and saw someone doing their washing by hand. He was complaining with the washing machine being broken (Ted managed to break it last week) he was having to do a hand wash with the laundry service also being closed for a few days. Pointed out to him that we have working washing machines on the upper floor. He might be feeling a little silly right now. When I went to pick up my washing from the machine someone had put my stuff in the tumble drier despite the notices up asking people not to put other people’s washing in the driers. Luckily I got my stuff out before my tee shirts had shrunk. Was tempted to take the person’s washing out the washing machine and throw it out the window, but settled for just stopping the washing machine, leaving their stuff sitting in a pool of water. If it’s someone who has put their washing on and went out for the night they are going to have to redo the whole lot. Poor Loz has lost a couple of hundred pound’s worth of clothes from others putting his stuff in the drier like that.
Loz staggered in, in his usual state after a nights drinking and slept until lunch time. By all accounts it was a good night last night.
Ted came in earlier to tell me since he was doing a course tomorrow I’d need to DI the wagons tomorrow. Managed to not point out to him that since I’ve been here six months I might actually be familiar with what needs done with the wagons, although I did shock the SNCO’s a couple of weeks ago when I pointed out to them that they were perfectly capable of doing the weekly’s on them themselves if they urgently required a vehicle.
Loz is watching American Football at the moment. He seems to be a big fan of it which makes him one of four people I know from the UK who are. I say seems to because whenever he puts it on he falls asleep watching it. I think it’s Atlanta vs Denver (score cards say ATL & DEN so I am guessing from that). Can’t hear it though as I have my earphones on and Ozzy is currently singing Mr Tinkertrain. Anyway, some guy called Beckham was getting interviewed. His hairdo just about had me coughing up my Irn Bru. He is a dark skinned guy, with a skraggily black beard and short shaved sides of black hair. The top of his head looks like a mop was dyed blonde and stuck on his head. I wonder if he has been to the hairdresser on camp for that do?
Watched the remake of Evil Dead. When I get home I need to get my boxed set back off Cameron and watch the original. Maybe I should get Kristi to watch it with me for Samhain? Pretty sure she’d like Army Of Darkness.
I think my body is prepping for being back in Scotland. I’ve started getting tired about 8pm here which works out as midnight back home which is when I normally go to sleep.

Day 175: Managed to prang one of the Land Rovers today. Was reversing into the DI bay to do its weekly and had Tank marshalling me. He told me to keep coming back and I couldn’t see the bollard in the mirror and the next thing the bumper is bent a bit forward. I’ll be getting some stick about that one, but it will only be for a few more days. The good news though is that since I leave this week I won’t have to weekly any more vehicles. If I could have had this accident at the start of my tour it would have been great. No one would have asked me to drive again and I’d have been a lot happier. On the last damn week it is just a pain in the butt. I have to be entirely honest though and blame Kellie as I was busy thinking of things I could do to torture her while I am over visiting.
Got my clearance complete from my section and I am about half way through clearing from the camp. Hoping to get most of the rest done tomorrow.

Day 176: I am now fuly cleared from the section and camp (this means I can go home and thus I will define this as a good thing). Even managed to get Loz dragged along and get him cleared too. Was looking for something in the office and managed to knock my desk top off the desk. It no longer works 100% so having a great time with that right now, but hey in a couple of days it is not my problem. Couldn’t find what I was looking for either. Tomorrow my replacement will be in the air. Decided since I only have a few days left that I’ll spend some time some time with the guys. Loz has never played The Game of Life, so I said I’d go down Rockhoppers with him and play it. Everyone else decided they didn’t want to go so it was called off. I made my attempt to socialise though and my conscience is clear there. Ok, it would be clear either way. There is something I have been planning for a while that I am going to do tonight. Kristi sent me some zombie face masks. Going to sneak over to Loz’s bed space once he falls asleep and jump out on him tonight. 

Day 177: My last day in uniform down here. Went into work today and for a while I sat and looked at work I could potentially do. Eventually I decided that I was going to do as much as possible to give my replacement an easy start. Went out with the guys for a few beers last night, but they put loads of depressing music on, like Nirvana and The Smiths so I ended up leaving early after 6 beers or so. Just waiting on Loz getting out of the shower then we are going to go check our luggage in.

Day 178: Baggage is in, flights home are booked and replacements are all here. Took Andy (my replacement) and Sam (Loz’s replacement) down to the bar where mostnof the SNCO’s and officers turned up for a hello / goodbye drinks. Can’t believe Loz got drunk enough to go minesweeping. I mean I have seen some lows but when you go round collecting up the dregs of other peoples drinks and pour them into your glass… Urgh.
Ok, lets get into character one last time…
‘There is only the two of us left now. So many others are gone. Matt, Elle, Adam, Lars… the list goes on. But we are not going out like that. There is one plane left. Early tomorrow morning we are going to make a run for it. If we don’t make it remember just one thing.

Never forget your towel.’

[ER]

Thank you for your service!

[Alex]

Photos from the trip.

One of the gizzits as a work in progress.




The liberation of San Carlos.




Poem from the War Graveyard.





The day of the South Atlantic Swim. I remember the sand being the coldest thing I have ever stood on. In fact, it was colder than the ocean.





Part of the hill the para's had to climb while under heavy machine gun fire to take Mt Longdon. This was done at night with no night vision gear (it had been lost when the supply ship was sunk).





One of the heavy machine gun posts.




An underground peat fire.





San Carlos War Graves.





3 para memorial to the dead of Mt Longdon.





This is where some troops had to take shelter under fire from Argentinian positions for three days. The white marks are where shrapnal from the artillery strikes hit the rocks.





Loz at the start of a night out.




Loz after two drinks.




Ryan the TMEC Ninja.





Fatrick Swayze on the loose (Matt).





Argentinian Artillery still there 30 years on.





Timmy's.





Also Timmy's.





Grave of a war hero (awarded a V.C. for turning the tide of the battle at Goose Green).





Section bowling night. For some reason our SNCO decided to turn up looking like a Russian sailor.





Good luck messages on the back of one of the gizzits.





The Wing Co's gizzit.






What's yours is...




This is just over the road from one of the islands, well for want of a better word I'll call it a settlement.

[Alex]

Oh, and if you happen to know anyone who is deploying and want to support them, then find out their postal address and send them a letter or two. Or if you can manage it, a care package. These things make a huge difference to morale.

[ER]

Are there snakes in the Falklands or did Saint Patrick make the rounds there too?

[Alex]

As far as I could tell the only wildlife there were either sea lions and birds.

Unless sea lions were really penguins in disguise...

[ER]

So my leg was pulled about the deadly Falklands boomslang, leading cause of death among palm tree growers in verdant Port Stanley, the so-called City of Sunshine? Boy, if you can't trust a Royal Marine in a Chelsea singles' bar, whom can you trust?

[Alex]

He is right about the palm trees and the sun. You should book yourself a month long holiday there to relax in the bustling metropolis's that is Port Stanley, gateway to the south.

Don't forget the Sandwich Isles, so named for their delicious snacks.

[ER]

Sounds lovely! Consider Disney World cancelled.

[Alex]

Planning Ash's first Disney trip next year, over Samhain. Although that will be Disneyland as it is a lot closer to Kristi's family.

[Svengoolie 3]

Alex, without any hostility I want to ask what the big deal is with the falkland islands? WHy does britain want to hold onto them? I really don't see anything about them. Is there an important base there?

[Alex]

It depends how you look at it (and I don't take any umbrage about being asked about this). The official party line is that the Falklands is independent territory under the protection of the UK (which is true, it has its own parliament and makes its own laws). We are there to ensure the islanders wishes to remain independent is respected. Since Argentina invaded we've maintained a standing force of approximately 1,500 soldiers, sailors and airmen to protect a population of 2,500 people. A few years ago a vote was held asking the islanders if they wanted Argentinian sovereignty or to remain under the UK. The result was over 99% to remain with the UK, and the British government has guaranteed the isles will remain independent as long as they want our protection.

Ok, so that is the official way of looking at it. We are a democracy with a history of fighting to ensure other countries get to be democratic too (unless we wanted their land, but that is a whole different story).

Privately I could point out that the Falkland Islands have a lot of oil in the surrounding waters and it is a handy gateway to Antarctica. Last I checked, the treaty promising to leave Antarctica alone and not exploit its resources is coming to an end (ok, it could have been extended or resigned and I've not heard about it), but the Falklands forms a very handy gateway for the UK to get down there from. When Argentina invaded the islands it was to distract national attention from the fact the then ruling military junta had completely tanked the economy. If memory serves, Argentinian inflation was at one point running at 14,000%.

Anyway, currently the Argentinian military does not have the capability to mount the kind of operation required to try again, and even if it decided to again would take decades of preparation, giving us plenty of advance warning (they'd have to embark on a ship building for example), they don't enough air assets with sufficient range to threaten the islands, not to mention we are currently fielding several of the most advanced aircraft in the southern hemisphere down there waiting to meet the second hand MiG's they do have that could potentially hit the islands.

None the less, we keep enough troops there to hold out in the event of an invasion until reinforcements could start arriving. I would put that down to politics rather than actually defending them (1,500 soldiers provide a bit of a boost to the local economy and thus keeps the local government very happy). I can't think of anywhere else in the world where you have a civilian/military balance of 60/40 to the population.

That however, is my own guess at things and not in any way to be mistaken for the official government line.

[Svengoolie 3]

Thanks for answering and not taking it as an attack.  Remind me to give you  good karma when I can.