Time for yet more terminal boredom...

Well, there was me, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, nine in the morning, at my Doctors' on Friday morning just gone, fully expecting to be sent back to work on light duties, and THUMP. Down to earth again.

He's still none too happy with either my post-heart-attack blood pressure ("still a bit too high") or the timing of my heart beat ("still a bit too fast").

So, straight to the depot with the bad news. The Allocations Officer there (the guy who assigns drivers to route rotas, and so on and so forth), looked like he'd swallowed a lemon. Whole.

"ANOTHER month?"
"Yep. Another. Doctors' Orders. Sorry, mate"
"Awright, go away!"

Excuse me for having a heart attack, Sam!

Then, I had to have another chat with the Depot boss, the Operations Manager. He was a mite more understanding. Well, his secretary was, anyhow - the boss was in a meeting!

Oh, and the reason for this Blant being a couple of days late? My PC was being upgraded by a mate. I know bog-all about these things, it seems, and he didn't want my ham-fisted fingers (huh?) messing everything up. So, I now have a machine that runs a genuine, certified, fully operational copy of MS XP Professional SP 2, with a replacement graphics card, a third IDE hard drive (250Gb), and a new shelf life of probably two years, until something better comes along. Cheers, mate

The way this is going, it won't be a sick note for a heart attack I'll be renewing, it'll be a sick note from going nuts from climbing the walls from complete and terminal boredom!

Speaking of boredom, so as to avoid it when left to my own devices by my better half, I got into re-enacting about half-way through last year (six months BHA, or Before Heart Attack). Re-enacting, in this case, being a living history group set up to help keep the British cold war armed forces alive in the memory. For my part, once fully recovered from my ticker attack, I'll be showing the Royal Military Police of the mid-1980s (my old T.A. Corps, no less, even if I was in there in the 1990s, not the 1980s). Anyway, it was mentioned on their forums that they'd be visiting the Firepower Museum (primarily set up to show off the Royal Artillery) in Woolwich this weekend (part of the museums Historic Vehicle display - this from an Artillery Museum!), and like a mug, I said that while I'd not be "in kit", I'd visit them there to say "Hi".

So, on a very bright and bloody cold Sunday morning (parking being a lot cheaper on Sundays in most places), I made my way to parts saarf lunnon, and attended said display. I even managed to find a free parking place in the road outside the museum - not bad, that! Remarkably, for a museum visit (recent visits to the museums in central London have been rather disappointing), I had a very enjoyable day - not just oggling the big boys' toys (well, there was some of that, of course - OI! The Artillery Pieces, you dirty-minded wotsit!)), but having a pleasantly good chat with the lads from the team as well!

The photo montage below is the static display they put on, showing the various amounts of kit and weaponry that a Falklands War era soldier would have to carry. Not too dissimilar to the load I was expected to carry as a Military Policeman in full kit in the field, the load-out weighs upwards of 80 pounds; add in my portion of the additional section machine gun ammunition, and you can look at over 100 pounds of kit weaponry, and munitions of one form or another. I'm led to believe that currently serving soldiers have to carry something like 20 more pounds of gear than I had to.



Stag On, as we used to say in the Territorial Army!