Post dated - written first night back in the UK

So I’m back home, back to using a Mac, back to autumn, back to missing Kate and back to, well, back to Britain.
It’s been one hell of a deployment, all in all. I’ve seen some things that less than 1% of the UK have seen, I’ve travelled a LONG way, I’ve seen animals in their native environment, learnt lots of things about using a SLR camera, met a wonderful girl and had to leave her 8000 miles away, and have now got experience of flying in a number of different types of aircraft.
Would I go back? Hell yes. Even without Kate, I’d love to go back south; with her there it becomes more imperative.
Am I glad to be home? Yes and no. For one thing I’m not home yet, I’m at my parents. This is the first time I’ve felt this, that my parents house is not my home. I’m always welcome here but this is their house, their home, not mine. It’s great to see them and Matt, Becky and Ellen (who loved her penguin) but I want to see my friends, I want to get back to my flat and relax in my own (rented) place. Don’t get me wrong, it IS wonderful to be here and they are brilliant but a week or two here is going to be enough.
I’m starting to see what Twoflower meant in Light Fantastic when he said “you haven’t travelled until you’ve got back home.” Looking back through the 2129 photos I’ve taken, I stripped them down to “just” 437 good ones and some of them are really good, I won’t be short of good images for backgrounds for a while, that’s for certain. I’m going to get one of those digital picture frames and load the good ones onto it, but that’ll have to wait until the next pay check at least.
Obviously the biggest down side of coming home is leaving my girlfriend (still feels weird to be able to say that after all this time) and enter into a very long distance relationship. We’re hoping it will work but both of know that the distance is very large, four time zones and totally different worldviews. So we’ll see how it goes.
It will be good to see friends and familiar places again though, and to be able to drive my own car when I want, where I want and above 40 mph (!) will be fantastic. As it is I’m still a bit jet-lagged so I’m going to reset my body clock tomorrow and head into town, which is about10 times bigger than Stanley, and then maybe Cheltenham, which is almost 100 times Stanley.
Pubs and real beer are going to be good, having to pay more than £3 for a 6 drink round isn’t. And yes, for the guys in London, that would have been an expensive round. If you consider that a double of Bells was 16p in the mess, more than £3 for a single is going to hurt. How much it would cost in the capitol I don’t want to think…
I had some bad days down there, not all of them hangover based. There were a couple of days when my forecasts just wouldn’t settle, some days I just wanted to be home, and some days that it felt like I was really up the arse of the world. But not many, and most of them were at the start, before I found my feet and made the friendships and acquaintances that I did.
Flying over South Georgia I couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d want to be, although I could think of some people I’d want to be there with. Some of my friends back here would have really loved it down there, Tasha and Chris especially.
I definitely drank too much and didn’t do enough exercise, but I’m surprised how little I’ve actually changed. Moustache aside, of course. I’m going to get my dad to take a few pictures of my with the south Atlantic facial fuzz still attached then it’s going!
Did improve my bowling though. I’ve also learned an huge amount of new weather skills as well. After all, I’ve been working at a level above my normal work standard with minimal information so getting back to Lossie with all the kit that is normal for a met office will be a welcome change of pace.
Actually, that’s another point, we’re changing at Lossie to have a regional unit as well as the local station one; and when I get back up we’re moving back into the office on the day I go home with the regional unit stand-up two weeks later. Joy.
Oh, and Richard, thanks for the great comment, I must say that was a really lovely poetic turn of phrase. And you're right, living on a mountain would be easier but I've tried that, the wind chaffs terribly. ..

My timing SUCKS. Seriously.

This will probably be my last post from the South Atlantic (this trip...) and five days ago I was really looking forwards to coming home.
I still am, mostly, but some things have happened in the last few days to make me wish for a bit longer here.
Since my last entry I was invited to go on a capability day by the RIC (Roulement/resident Infantry Company) which was the Rifles and is now the Green Howards (Yorkshire) where they showed us what they do, where they do it and make lots of things go BANG!
It was a good chance to see the range they use, for which we forecast, but most of us haven't been there. I got a panoramic of the range (which won't be posted) and some rather decent shots of things going bang. As I'm a civvie I wasn't allowed to shoot anything but did get to play with a sniper rifle that had been made safe.


Managed a couple of trips into Stanley and the road has been refilled. The first time I drove it, I managed to hold 40 odd mph for most of the way, feeling safe all the time. Unfortunately the last time the pot holes were starting to reappear. Not as bad as before (see previous entries) but enough to make 40 unsafe for many stretches. Ahh well, had decent stereo in the L200 each time so the trip was still good.
After this I got on another flight, this time on a Hercules C-130k. Supposed to be to the South Sandwich Islands but owing to a lack of air refuelling aircraft we only went to South Georgia. "Only" of course being relative.

When I can I'll stick up more photos, or have a look at my Flickr account, the link is in the "links" section on the right.
The Herc is an interesting aircraft, it was pretty full and all of us wanted the good photos. We were flying pretty low, about 1000 ft above the water, we were all wearing immersion suits (bit like dry suits) and one side door was open, as was the top part of the rear ramp. As there were protective nets over all the open doors to get clear shots you had to bag one of the small windows or get right up to the net. One guy had positioned himself lying down to get his lens out of the side door but was not going to move. I tried to get decent pictures then move out of the way, getting blatted by the wind and bounced by the aircraft.

On the way back we were escorted in by an F3, which was pretty damn cool!

The weather forecast was pretty much spot on for the whole trip, which is very satisfying.

The big bit of news this week: a couple of weeks back a new teacher came to the school here, called Kate. We got on great and a couple of days ago hooked up. I'm going to try to get a few pictures of her to put up, if she'll let me.
Yes, that's right, I'm no longer single.
The week before I fly 8000 miles away.
Arse.
You see what I mean about my timing? We both knew the situation at the start and are both a bit bummed by it. Her tour down here is for 2 years so there's a good chance I'll be back down before she leaves but even so it's not the best. We're going to see how things turn out but for now we'll enjoy the next couple of days together.
So I've gone from really looking forward to going home to wanting more time here. I never keep it simple, do I?