Saturday, March 17, 2012
DAY 217 (Tuesday 06 March 2012)
Gave my money and bits and pieces to Karnasher Tamang today with regards to mine and Charlie’s trek to Everest Base Camp so I am now all paid up on that front, I have just got my flights to LUKLA to pay for and then we are set to go, well except for a few bits and pieces that we have to get to take with us. I am so looking forward to it, it will be nearly 3 weeks away from work and it will be well worth it.
DAY 216 (Monday 05 March 2012)
Well I know that I am about 6 hours ahead of the UK, but blimey, I sent in my second assignment this lunchtime my time which would have been about 0700hrs UK time and when I checked my emails just now (just before bedtime), there was an email from Sonia, to be honest because it came back so quick I was dreading opening it as I didn’t want to be told I had to put more work into any of the questions, but guess what, I passed my second assignment.
I emailed Sonia back to say that I was currently working on Assignment 3 but it would be a couple of weeks before I would be able to send in my work sheet as I am going to be away on leave from Wednesday this week for 3 days and then on an exercise with work the week after.
I emailed Sonia back to say that I was currently working on Assignment 3 but it would be a couple of weeks before I would be able to send in my work sheet as I am going to be away on leave from Wednesday this week for 3 days and then on an exercise with work the week after.
DAY 212 (Thursday 01 March 2012)
Blimey that was quick, I got my feedback from Sonia my tutor who says that I have passed my first Assignment and that the answer that I gave were informative. Yay me.
DAY 211 (Wednesday 29 February 2012)
Well I have resubmitted my Assignment 1 making it more detailed as per the feedback that I initially got back. I hope this is much better and that I get my feedback sheet saying that I have passed so that I can submit my second assignment as I have almost finished it.
DAY 209 (Monday 27 February 2012)
Managed to get an answer back from my tutor Sonia, so now that I know what she is after I will be able to finish assignment 1 and get it resubmitted.
DAY 208 (Sunday 26 February 2012)
Ended up having to email my tutor to see what she meant by one of the questions, so hopefully by the time I check my emails tomorrow there may be an answer to help point me in the right direction.
DAY 206 (Friday 24 February 2012)
Tonight was a darts nights, one of the few games that we are going to be starting to do on a Friday every couple of weeks, it’s just to get us all together so that we have something to do other than drink (not that many people seem to mind the drinking). It was supposed to start at 1615hrs but because there were delays on some people actually getting to the bar as work got in the way first the main games didn’t start until later, but those who were there started their 501 game, needless to say I ended up having to play against the RAO, but alas, I gave him a run for his money (once I got the feel of the darts) but not good enough to beat him.
In the end, the officers beat the SNCOs, so next time we will have to have a game where we will have no problem in winning, (bring out the Tiddlywinks).
In the end, the officers beat the SNCOs, so next time we will have to have a game where we will have no problem in winning, (bring out the Tiddlywinks).
DAY 205 (Thursday 23 February 2012)
Today was my first day out on the bike for PT since before Christmas leave, I had been putting it off in going out on the bike as it has be pretty cold on a morning because of the wind chill. Now the seal has been broken I should really get out on it more now. The other reason for going out on a PT day is because I knew I had to get up and attend, if it was a weekend I could just quite happily stay under the duvet.
Later tonight I managed to get on to the internet to check my emails, there was one there from my tutor Sonia, she had sent my feedback regarding my first assignment and basically my first question was alright, but she wanted me to elaborate a bit more on the other two questions, so, looks like I shall be doing a bit more research as she wants each question to have at least five hundred words per answer. If this is going to be the case for the rest of my assignments I am not sure how I am going to manage that amount of words, looks like a lot of research over the internet is going to have to happen as there isn’t always enough in the actual course folder to help.
DAY 204 (Wednesday 22 February 2012)
I managed to get my first assignment sent in via email to my tutor for marking, hopefully it will come back with a good result, not sure how long it will take for Sonia (my tutor) to get back to me as I don’t know how busy she is.
DAY 198 (Friday 17 February 2012)
Today was the day that I was up early to go to the CHAUTARA to say goodbye to the RAO (Kevin and Kim Thorpe), but a text came in very late the night before to say that they had to leave that night due to a problem with the flight and that they would miss their connecting flight to Australia. As I didn’t get that text I got up and still went to the CHAUTARA, but I wasn’t the only one that showed up Chris Graham the Postie showed up too.
The only other thing that really happened was we all had to go for an update brief from the COS to let us know what was going on, still there is no news as to whether or not my job has been cut, but what I do know is if it is cut I will still get to do my full time out here and leave around July next year.
DAY 196 (Wednesday 15 February 2012)
Same as Tuesday, I have hardly got any work so cracking on reading my Animal Care study work.
DAY 195 (Tuesday 14 February 2012)
As it is really quiet for me in work at the moment I have started to read my Animal Care folder, there are actually quite some interesting things in it that I didn’t realise about some animals before.
DAY 194 (Monday 13 February 2012)
The best thing about today was that my Home Study course in Animal Care finally showed up.
DAY 193 (Sunday 12 February 2012)
No news to report today, just having a quiet relaxing day doing absolutely nothing, not even baking.
DAY 192 (Saturday 11 February 2012)
Today was the day to go to KAKANI for the Kev’s (RAO) and Nicky’s farewell function from the RAO department and of course me and DCOS (we are not classed as the RAO department but we get invited to stuff as we are SPS). Anyway, we left camp in 2 buses as there were quite a few of us and headed out on our 2 hour drive to KAKANI, now I have already cycled half way to KAKANI and that was emotional just constantly going up hill......anyway I digress. We got to KAKANI just over an hour and half later and the views from the top were amazing, it was clear enough to actually see the mountains.
The food kept coming all day, but there was a heck of a load of chicken wings, some Bratwurst sausages and local food which was made by the Nepali’s that work with us, which they bought with them to the function.
View from Kakani Bungalow
The boys from the Registry Office went about getting the BBQ working and laying out roll mats (for us to sit on), thank you for small mercies, I thought they were expecting us to do some sort of PT before we got fed....also a sound system was set up for the music, anyway, the food and drink was flowing more or less straight away and I took cookies for people to have whilst they were waiting for the food, let’s just say my cookies didn’t last long.
After the food had been served it was time for the farewell speeches of Kevin, Kim (Wife) and Nicky (FSA), there was also a hello to our new RAO Maj Les McCulloch and his wife Jackie. We had a group photo of all of us together not just the RAO staff but everyone who went to KAKANI and then the dancing began, well I say dancing it was a case of making your body move to the music as best as you could. It was quite a good, the weather stayed sunny but I will admit, that as soon as the sun went behind a cloud it got blooming cold. Nicky even borrowed my fleece top and kept it for the night as she and the RAO’s stayed at the bungalow overnight whilst the rest of left to head back down to camp.
KAKANI is a very nice place to go to if you want to chill out over a weekend or even a couple of days during the week, (if you take a couple of days off work that is).
DAY 191 (Friday 27 January 2012)
Today was the day for Hails & Farewells in the Mess, the Hails were for the new RAO (Maj Les McCulloch) and his wife Jackie, Hayley (the posties wife) and the Farewells were for the old RAO (Maj Kevin Thorpe) and his wife Kim, Nicky Young the FSA and finally the doctor Graham Cooper who incidentally will be coming out again in March for a couple of weeks to cover as Locum again for Dr Kate Baker whilst she is on leave, leave I hear you say, she has only just got back from Maternity leave.....what is this world coming too?
DAY 190 (Thursday 26 January 2012)
PT today, there I was thinking I would get an easy time in the gym as the rest of the group went out for their Thursday morning run, how wrong was I! BK didn’t go out on his bike this morning with the runners as the wind chill was really cold and it just went through you, so he decided he would go to the gym and knowing that I was going to be there he had planned a little workout session that included me……really BK I would’ve been happy on my own…..anyway, there was Laxman Rana, BK and me doing the exercises, we were doing situps where we started at doing 30, then 25, then 20 and so on, so by the time we had finished we would have done 105 situps, then we were on the weights (bench pressing), there we had to go from our heaviest weight that we could lift (would you believe it was a measly 4 for me, but when I found out how many times we had to lift them going from 1 to 10 but doing it in the form of 1 then 1 2 then 1 2 3 and so on until you had completed your session right the way to 10, my god I felt like I was trying to lift a ton, but do you know what, I felt better after it all. Finally we had one more session of sit ups, but this time BK said to do our best, I wanted to do just 50 as I had already done 105, but by the time I finished I had pushed out another 100, so I most definitely had a good workout today.
Not sure though how I will feel for tomorrow’s session with Jillian……
DAY 188 (Tuesday 24 January 2012)
Yay, the plumber finally showed up during lunch time, but not before Charlie had to go and inform DIO that the plumber never arrived yesterday.
DAY 187 (Monday 23 January 2012)
Well Charlie went to DIO to call out the plumber and true to form they did not show up. It is so annoying when that happens as Charlie had to wait in all day, common courtesy is not hard; but then Charlie has to keep reminding me as to which country I am in.
DAY 185 (Saturday 21 January 2012)
We had a trip to THAMEL today, only to get our next supply of DVDs so we have something to watch on a night for a couple of hours before bedtime.
DAY 184 (Friday 20 January 2012)
Well it’s official, I have now been here for 6 months, I am actually a quarter of the way through my posting, if I had been on an Op Tour I would have been on my way home or even getting ready to be on my way home.
We had a bit of trouble with the tap in the kitchen, it has been leaking for a while so we will be calling out the plumber on Monday as I think we will be able to cope over the weekend.
DAY 182 (Wednesday 18 January 2012)
No news to report today on the work front, but tonight was BINGO night, I went with Marion the SSAFA lady as she is known, there were 5 games in total to play and we bought tickets for each game, I actually won a whole 100NRS which equates to a whopping 76 pence (be still my beating heart), the top prize for the final game was 1000NRS which with our exchange rate of 128.95 to the pound is £7.75 and would you believe Marion won that; even though I had to shout BINGO for her. Marion had shown me that she only needed number 7 to win the full house and as she was finishing saying what she was saying to me, the bingo caller called out the number by saying James Bond, with that she went “what did he say” as I shouted “BINGO”, then told her to score of number 7.
Started to do an Exercise DVD with Jillian Michaels, for those of you who don’t know who she is, she is a personal trainer that can normally be seen on a programme called ‘The Biggest Loser’, she gets results, so I thought I would try out her DVD’s; OMG I only started today and you can feel it already, especially if you do the exercises correctly, the one that I am doing at the moment is called ‘6 Weeks Abs’, Jillian tells you on the DVD to do the exercises for a minimum of 5 days a week, but as I already do a vigorous PT session twice a week and go out on my bike at the weekends (OK maybe not at the moment as it’s too cold), I only do the routine 3 days a week, so I will take a little longer than 6 weeks. I’ll let you know how I get on.
DAY 181 (Tuesday 17 January 2012)
Today was the day that the Redundancy list was announced (officially) and I am glad to say that I am not in the bracket for redundancy so I can breathe for now as the next Tranche will be announced in October, I hope they will let me go as “natural wastage” as I don’t have that long left to do to my 22 years.
DAY 180 (Monday 16 January 2012)
Woohoo, have now handed over my duty so I can now relax on an evening without the fear of the phone going off, especially during the night, that is the worst part of the duty for me, is not being able to sleep properly for fear of not hearing the phone.
I have ordered a home study course to keep me occupied at the weekends, so let’s hope it arrives soon, the length of time that it takes for mail to get over here is about 10 working days, so I should hopefully receive it around 26th – 29th of this month. The course that I have ordered is Animal Care Level 2 Award; I thought I would do something that I know I would enjoy.
I have ordered a home study course to keep me occupied at the weekends, so let’s hope it arrives soon, the length of time that it takes for mail to get over here is about 10 working days, so I should hopefully receive it around 26th – 29th of this month. The course that I have ordered is Animal Care Level 2 Award; I thought I would do something that I know I would enjoy.
DAY 179 (Sunday 15 January 2012)
I did some more baking today as I wanted to use up the yoghurt that I had opened yesterday when I made the Apple & Cinnamon muffins and also glad to say that the phone didn’t ring today.
DAY 178 (Saturday 14 January 2012)
As I was on duty this weekend I didn’t relish the idea to have to go far, so we were going to go to THAMEL to get some more DVDs before the box set we are watching runs out, but fortunately it will last us another week, so I stayed local to home, just doing the shopping and some baking, but whilst I was out at BHAT BHATENI’s doing the shopping I had a call on the duty phone, all it was for was permission to use the duty vehicle to take someone to hospital, so I gave permission.
It was my turn for making tea today and I had decided on making a minestrone soup, a recipe that I got from the community page of Weight Watchers. As I was preparing tea, I got another call on the duty phone, this time it was from the Doctor asking if I could call out the duty engineer to come and look at his generator as it was playing up, what you have to realise is that out here we rely on generators because the electricity mainframe isn’t able to always cope with the demands of the people. Anyway, I gave him the number so that he could call the duty engineer himself as he would have a better chance of explaining what was going on with the generator.
After that I had a quiet evening and glad to say that the phone didn’t go off again.
DAY 177 (Friday 13 January 2012)
Well today was the day that we were allowed to have our afternoon off in lieu for being in work on Sunday afternoon, but guess what……yep I didn’t get the afternoon off, I did however get out work an hour earlier than normal, but as I was on duty I got a call from MT to inform me that the Fuel Truck had arrived and that it would be filling the tanks, but first I had to go round and do a “dip check” to make sure that we weren’t being diddled out of any fuel as it had to be brought in from India and as India seem to be cutting back on how much fuel is being brought into Nepal, there could be a possibility that the fuel could be hijacked.
Anyway, finally after 2 hours the fuel truck and filled our tanks and everything was fine
DAY 176 (Thursday 12 January 2012)
No news to report to day regarding Nepal, but on the family front it is my sister’s (Nadine’s) birthday, I won’t tell you how old she is as I like living. HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
DAY 173 (Monday 09 January 2012)
Well today was the start of my duty, I had a little surprise though when I took the duty folder over, the amount of things that I had to do when I was on duty back in October had been reduced dramatically, before I had to go the Guardroom everyday to do the checks, but now it is only once a week and that was the same for a couple of other things too and the other stuff you only had to check twice a week, so technically some of your checks could be done in one day and you wouldn’t have to worry about it again that week.
DAY 172 (Sunday 08 January 2012)
Today was the day that we had to be in work in the afternoon, all because we had a VVIP visit (I can tell you who it is now as the visit is over) from the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Maj Gen Sir David Richards GCB CBE DSO ADC Gen (for those who don’t know, the letters after his name are post nominals). Anyway because he was the Col Comdt to the Brigade of Gurkhas this would be is last official visit so we had to be in work to show our support.
Front of the Coin
CDS Visit
After a presentation of the Elizabeth Cross to the father of the late Rfn Vijay Rai, we all departed for the Kathmandu Mess where we were stood in our selective little groups so that the CDS could come around and briefly meet all of us for a quick chat, when the CDS got to me and realised that is was me that did his visit programme (with the help from the SO Coord in Pokhara on the trek part), he shook my hand and left a commemorative coin in my hand.
Front of the Coin
Rear of the Coin
After we had our little get together in the Mess it was time for a quick photo outside with the CDS and a presentation to him from us, before he then left to go back to the Comd’s house where he had been staying. That was it for us; however, we have been told that because we “worked” today we will be getting an afternoon off in lieu.
DAY 171 (Saturday 07 January 2012)
All I have really done today is bake, I made this awesome Weight Watchers style Apple Upside Down cake and it was very light and scrummy, I have made enough for both me and Charlie to have 4 slices each, next time I might try a different fruit in this cake.
DAY 170 (Friday 06 January 2012)
Well I managed to get an early knock off this afternoon, not because I had finished all my work that I could do, (even though that helped), but because we have to be in work on Sunday afternoon because of the VVIP that is coming for a visit and the COS has said that we could have an afternoon off in lieu on Fri 13 Jan 12, well for me that won’t happen as I am on duty next week, so I got permission from DCOS to take the afternoon off.
Other than that I did nothing when I got back home except relax.
Other than that I did nothing when I got back home except relax.
DAY 169 (Thursday 05 January 2012)
There was a Bhund today so that meant no vehicle movement and the shops were well and truly shut, so Charlie couldn’t go out to do any shopping if he wanted to, fortunately we had plenty of food in the house, also because of the Bhund, the new Gurkha recruits (this is the first lot that had arrived as they are due to fly to the UK on Saturday evening and that is when the second lot are due to arrive to start their process to move to the UK on Mon 9 Jan 12) that had just had their Attestation parade arrived during the early hours, this was now the start of their journey back to the UK to begin their training to become trained Infantrymen.
The Bhund ended at 1500hrs which was good news as that meant we could have vehicle movement and people could get out and about without the fear of being attacked.
DAY 167 (Tuesday 03 January 2012)
Well today is my first day back to work (we still had to do a PT session, nothing to tell there really it was just a circuit session) and I didn’t even get a chance to get to my office before the COS (Chief of Staff) told me he needed to see me in his office as there were amendments to be made to the visit programme for the VVIP that was arriving that day. I still can’t tell you who the VVIP is just yet, but the majority of you who reads this will think he’s not VVIP, but in the eyes of the MOD he is.
Anyway, other than that it was a case of catching up with my emails for other visitors that are due to come in, so it was a normal day in the office for a Tuesday.
DAY 166 (Monday 02 January 2012)
Well today is my last day of leave before I head back to work, the only thing that I have really done is my ironing from all the holiday clothes that were washed when we got back as I did my uniform prior to going on holiday.
DAY 164 (Saturday 31 December 2011)
NEW YEARS EVE
To be honest with you, even though it is New Years Eve we haven’t really done anything, so there is no news to report.
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