Yet another reason...

Hi there,
I'm round at D+K's as it's Saturday and seeing as it's Saturday I'm doing a chilly (yum) While the rest of the chums watch the Ireland v Scotland rugby, so far it's a good game.

K got herself a keyboard (synth type not type type) this morning and will soon driving D around the bend as she gets back into the swing of learning how to be a virtuoso. I wish them both good luck. R also got himself an instrument, a guitar and plans to learn the basics over the next year while he is still based in the area. I'm sure that A will give him plenty of advice and tips over the coming months. And while we where still in the shop I very nearly got a roll of music, a loo roll, but at £5 a roll its an awfully expensive way to spend a penny.

The little Internet cafe in the base finally closed for business the other week, one of the reasons for a lack of activity on this blog, forced to close because of a large and soulless company called Aramak. They used to just do food and catering to the various messes and wardrooms, not any more. They have now taken over what was left of the NAAFI/spar and have control over a building in the base I'm in called the JRAC which houses the junior rates bar and dinning hall and also has on the ground floor the NAAFI shop, an automat, two financial advice centres and until recently the Internet cafe. The shop is still there just a little re-branding over the coming weeks, so is one of the finance shops, but the others had been given their marching orders (no pun intended).

Only two more chilly nights left before I leave the mob and head north for good, it would be more but I have to go home a few times just to drop stuff off as the only thing I'll be leaving Pompy with (for good) will be my small rucksack and a laptop, travel light move fast and all that rot, snif.

On a lighter note here's what happened on Friday morning at about 11:30.

I was just thinking to myself that seeing as it's half past and we close for the weekend at twelve and no body had been in all morning wanting anything making and I was well ahead on the one job I have in at the moment, I thought that I'll get cleaned up and go a little early (very naughty). The next thing to happen is a fellow chief wanders in and asks for me to make him a rather intricate looking bit of metal, it looked like 6 hours work on the miller and radial arm drill, well actually it looked trashed and in four bits. I told him not today and that I'd see him on Monday morning, Oh, says he, we sail on Monday. What it boils down to is this, a contractor was working on some bit of kit and had broken what this bloke had in his hand, so it's up to the contractor to rectify the problem not the navy and certainly not me, especially very late on a Friday!
It's like another contractor who was commissioned to do a modification on a hanger door recently. He didn't have the correct spares to do the job so asks could someone do some machining and fitting for him so that he wouldn't have to go back to where he came from to get the correct cog. The cheeky git gets his request and I end up doing the machining, I also get told to stop the PLANNED job I was on and to do this new one for the contractor, oh and be quick as we're holding up a contractor and are now responsible (financially) for the delay caused!.
So, this half wit turns up without the correct spares as detailed in the work order and instead of being told to sod off and get the correct spares that the navy has paid for, is told by another half wit (this time in uniform), yes we can do that for you. So the country just paid a company for doing half a job badly!? I just don't get it.

Well it's not going to be my problem if a few weeks time, hurrah!

TTFN