Return of the ramblings...

Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been 2 weeks since my last (proper) post...

I should explain that I am in no way shape or form, religious in any sense of the word. So, I have never been to a confessional, and I'm not Roman Catholic. I was merely using this as a dramatic entrance. A dramatic entrance that I have now ruined by explaining it. Marvellous.

Okay, so I haven't been able to post for a while. I would like you all to think that this was to show you what happens when people don't leave comments after reading. Well that's what I want you to believe, but the truth is very different.

As it's been two weeks, you'd think that I have loads of stuff to write about, but unfortunatly my ol' grey matter don't work that well, so half of the stuff you could have been reading about has been lost in the depths of my empty head somewhere. And alot of the other stuff that happens is quite frankly duller than the contents of my brother's head. I mean seriously, who wants to read that my life is so exciting that for the last few days, I have been looking research into flat rental, despite the fact that I'm not thinking of moving out for two to three years! I mean really, how dull is my life at times?

But I have managed to remember enough stuff to put together an almost coherent blog, that might actually be of interest. So enough gabbling around the issue. Just why in the name of all that's the Monty Cat (and that's ALOT of cat), was there nothing good on CATCOUK last week? Well it all started in late August, when a good friend of mine, and fellow NTC officer, Graham, said that he was running a shuffleboard evening, and I agreed to run the evening for them. Just a few short months later, on a dark and cold Sunday night, and I was sitting in Lavant Village Hall running said fundraising event.

By the time I got home, and realised that Top Gear hadn't recorded, and it was 11 O'Clock. With Chesswood the next morning, and another late night instore for Monday, I went to bed. Monday was of course bonfire night, and Bonfire night, we supported TS Implacable by forming the West Sussex South Regional Marching Band, to lead 10 000 or so people for the Guildford Torchlight Procession.

This is always an amazing night every year, but this year was extra specially... er... special. To start with, I am currently playing the side drum, although I just fill in where I am needed really. Our sister ship, Implacable raise more money than they know what to do wth it seems at times. They had just bought a set of drum sticks for the band. Nothing odd about that, you need drum sticks in a marching band. But these were no ordinary drum sticks - they glowed blue!

They looked amazing, but to be fair, were an absolute pain the arse to play. Made of clear lexan, the sticks were a little bit bendy, making them difficult to play with anyway. But this was made worse by the fact, that they weren't balanced very well. To play well, you need to hold the sticks at their balancing point. But because these sticks had batteries (hearing aid style) in the end, they were exceptionally heavy at the end. This meant the balancing point was virtually the end of the stick, leading to playing sticks that are essentially 50% longer than normal. I got about half way through the parade, and I honestly thought my wrists were going to fall off!

The second bit of fun that I had at Guildford was driving. The parade finished in the middle of a large recreation ground, but started in Guildford town centre. Whilst Implacable's minibus follows the band in the parade (normally, when it's not being repaired by the RAC like this year), any support cars, and Intrepid's minibus (well convoy of cars, we don't have a minibus... but if you have a minibus, and you would like to donate it to a youth group in Lancing, leave a message...), all of the cars have to be at one end of the other. So we take all the cars to the field first, then one person drives back to the start with the drivers. I offered to drive (as I like driving), so I would make the trip three times.

Getting across the field was less than easy. With throngs of people gathering to watch, getting cars through was difficult. As with every year, I put my hazard lights on, and switched on the main beams to blind everyone. Add this to the robust grunt of my mighty Escort (alright, rattly purr anyway), and you would think people would get out the way. But instead people prefer to pretend to be deers in the headlights and just stand there. As I am crawling along, potentially going to be late for the start of the parade, I glance across at my dash board, where I see my American Emergency Services blue flashing light. I think you can see where this is headed.

Being off the public road and in a park, it was perfectly legal for me to use it! Hurrah! And you'd be suprised what a difference it made. Getting back (once the other cars were dropped off, and I had the drivers in my car) was much easier. People were almost activly getting out of the way. The parade happenned, and I hitched a lift back to my car. I had to drive accross the field again to pick the cadets. So once again, the magnetic blue light ended up on the roof, and I crawled accross the field. The cadets, and fellow officers thought this was hillarious, but the story doesn't end there.

I parked up, removed the light from my roof, opened the boot, and started loading stuff. As I was loading my drum, I noticed a figure approaching me in a bright yellow jacket, wearing a policeman's helmet.... I imagine at this point, you're all thinking the same as the NTC mob were thinking: 'Andy's gonna get nicked'. Of course, I know that I haven't broken the law, but you're never quite so sure of yourself when you have the long arm of the law bearing down on you.

Unfortunatly, I can't tell you what happenned next for legal reasons.

Anyways, Wednesday was pretty dull. Only joking. The Policeman asked if I used the light on the road. I replied with a slight chuckle, no, that would be illegal. He said that was great, but why was I using it this evening. To get the crowds out the way was the answer, and said that was fair enough, and told me to carry on. Marvellous. I do support the Police. They have a pretty thankless task, and they are in trying to keep our streets safe. Support your local constabulary kids. If you get knicked, you probably did something wrong anyway.

So that explains why I didn't blog Sunday and Monday, but why the prolonged delay? My mobile phone has given up he ghost, and I have spent the rest of the week trying to sort that out. I don;t mind so much, but I need that phone for NTC purposes. God knows what information I have missed. Apologies to all that have tried to contact me, and failed. Hopefully my phone is being replaced this week. Find out next week, only on CATCOUK (if I actually post something...).

The other point of note, before it's time to climb back into my box for another week, this week at Chesswood was cycling profficiancy week. Being the outdoor loving mug, I offered to help out. It was actually quite enjoyable, and I do love being in the fresh air. But it was staggering just how useless some of these kids were. Alot of them were fine, but some of them... oh boy. In their own little worlds. Snaking about all over the roads, just generally having a merry old time. Even their eyes looked a little glazed over. You wouldn't think 10 year olds would be stoned in the middle of a school day would you. As Jimmy Carr said: Where do school children get their drugs from - A SUPPLY teacher...

I should clear up that the kids weren't not under the influence of drugs, and CATCOUK does not condone the use of recreation drugs.

Lovely jubbly. Hopefully this was a better post, and Paul T from Sussex won't feel the need to leave a message complaining. But at least he left a message! See you all next week.

If you have a minibus, and would like to donate it to Training Ship Intrepid, Nautical Training Corps, why not leave a message starting your message with the make, model and year.

If you have a minibus, but don't want to donate it, why not leave the keys in the ignition, and then leave a message starting your message with the address where you park your bus (even if you don't want to leave the keys, were all from Lancing, so we could probably just hotwire it, but the keys would make it much easier).

If you don't have a minibus, why not leave a comment, starting your message with the ammount you would like to donate so that we can buy our own...

Quote of the Week: 'When I was a girl, I used to pinch my brother's purple chopper,' said Nikki. For those of you that didn't get the double meaning, she was just talking about her brothers chopper BIKE when we were helping at cycling profficiancy.

Song of the Month: Knights of Cydonia. Muse.