I asked for it I suppose

They say that pride comes before a fall (a miss quote but never mind) and I guess that's true here. After my previous statements, it turns out that I haven't finished my NVQ. It looks like the four observation days that we did aren't enough and the boss and myself need to do another one. To be honest, I thought we'd done an extra one anyway but I guess the boss wasn't taking down notes that day.
This wouldn't be a problem but the boss is on leave until the end of August so if I need to do another day with him I'll have to stay up here for an extra few days or a week.
Don't get me wrong, I do like it up here but I was getting my mind sorted for the move so I need to re-evaluate somewhat.
Pah, it's no big deal really but it does suck somewhat. Mainly because this is one of those things that gets sprung on you with an air of "Oh, did you not know?"
On the plus side, I can use the time to loose more weight and get a bit fitter. OASC beckons, but that's another story.
Oh and a belated Happy Birthday Kev!

Not many jobs where you're only expected to be right six days out of 7

Of course the RAF require a bit better than that, but that's the official statistic.
It's been stormy today, I managed to be able to say, "and after the main storm system passes we may still get isolated storm cells with a chance of tornados."
For those of you in the US or elsewhere, tornados aren't a regular feature in the UK but at least two were reported yesterday and the conditions are the same so I could honestly predict them. Generally the twisters that we get here are small and short lived, except for the Birmingham storm last year of course, but we do get quite a few of them in the year but no one usually notices. In fact we have the highest density of tornados of any country. Checking the BBC News there have been reports of tornadic activity in the areas we went for, so yay for me.
I've finished all of the modules of my NVQ in weather forecasting that I can do here as well, so I'm almost fully qualified. An NVQ is a National Vocational Qualification; it's a work based skills qualification that you can get in almost any subject. There are 5 levels, level 1 being the more rudimentary skills and level 4/5 being the highest. The big difference between the top two levels (we've been told) is that level 5 has management gumpf thrown in as well. I've been doing the level 4, which is quite enough for me. It's made up of different units that you have to gain evidence for, things like finding out about the customer and what they need from the weather forecasting services, to actually forecasting, monitoring the weather, presenting the briefs and then things like health and safety. The unit 1 - Customer's requirements and critical values - can be completed by a series of tables listing things like who the customers are and what the maximum wind speeds are for example. I did it a bit differently, mine was what can only be described as an essay on the RAF station that I'm at. I feel sorry for my SMetO (Senior Meteorological Officer - the boss) as he had to trawl through it finding the relevant bits of information. I went back through it and highlighted the important bits so it was a bit better for him but the thing still comes out at 11,033 words, which is pretty much dissertation length. Oh well, I had quite alot of stuff to say, and the SMetO says he didn't know some of the stuff in it so I feel validated.
If I did it again though, or had to make a recommendation to someone else, I say it would be easier to use tables to answer the questions.