F e a t u r e s
it, warm, with butter), taking very little exercise, for four months, I’ve put on nearly two stone and severe action is needed, especially since simply buying jeans the next size up is hardly an easy option. A bunch of us try and provide moral support for each other to shift that Falklands’ Stone. I have a rather surreal conversation with someone who used to work in the weighing machine business, and it seems that it all comes down to where you place the damn thing. So perhaps that extra two stone is simply because we are south of the equator and living on peat???!
22nd November I begin a Basic Vehicle Maintenance course run by MT. Bessie comes too; early Landrovers are good for courses because you can access things easily and there’s no electronics (there’s hardly any electrics either!). I’m hoping Bessie might get a free makeover. There are loads of courses to do out here – from the OU to Off-Road Driving. Just sign up!
December 5th Great time of year for picnics on Bertha’s Beach. Sitting in the sunshine amid the dunes with the children digging in the sand, finding fantastic shells to add to our ever increasing shell collection, we remark upon a cloud moving with speed in our direction. Seconds later there are hailstones battering the beach. Moments after that it’s all over and the sun is out again. The quick
www.raf-families-federation.org.uk
changes of weather are like being on a boat in the middle of the ocean – squalls come racing past leaving a light covering of hail, snow, rain – and move on.
December 10th We head off to Port Louis, which was where Darwin landed. I have now realised, after 9 years of marriage, that our travels are in fact a secret echo of those of Darwin, Andrew’s hero. I have merely to read The Voyage of the Beagle to know where we will be going over the next few decades. On the way back Henry threw his beloved Big Caggy (smelly, once-white, once-wooly, ex- cardigan/blanket) out of the window… We turn round and eventually find it, brown and muddy, in the middle of the road. He still has it today, but we did wash it.
December 14th Andrew tells us he’s going for a jolly on a Chinook today – they are doing manoeuvres and have asked him
along. The children and I wave our hankies as he goes over our garden. When he gets back we ask if he saw us – ‘Not a chance,’ he said, ‘I had my head in a bag and was sick as a dog…’ But good practice for him; he has since done many hours in a Chinook in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
December 23rd Families’ Day – utterly fantastic. Humphrey sat in a Tornado, we all went in a VC10 for a re-fuelling jaunt (Hen and I both chucked), I went up for a whizz in the Herc with the back down and the nets up (I was doing fine until they shut the back and I saw that I was sitting next to a sign saying Urinal Only, No Rubbish – whereupon, obviously, I threw up again. Luckily I’d put in a special request for a sick bag.). Lastly, I went up in the Sea-King and because the doors stayed open all the time I was too frozen to be sick. Great day though, and it didn’t half help my weigh-in at the next Fat Club…
December 25th Christmas Day. Lunch with friends. I’ve promised to bring the turkey and am rather pleased with the result until Alan starts carving and finds the inevitable shrivelled plastic bag of goodies inside. Why does it always happen to me?
December 26th The Boxing Day races in Stanley! Great day out!I half-heartedly put my name for in the military race (phew,
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