Busy, busy!

Its been a very busy year at work.  I started the year preparing for Tynwald Day and the State Opening of Parliment on the Isle of Man.

I have now entered my final 2 years of Service and will leave the Royal Navy on 14 January 2015.  I have had a great time but now I am looking forward to leaving.  It isn't the Navy that I joined and sad to say but I am looking forward to leaving now.

At the end of February I delivered the Commissioning Parade for HMS Astute in Faslane.  That was an interesting time, trying to mould scruffy submariners into some semblance of smart sailors.  True to form though, they delivered on the day!

During Easter leave Maggie Thatcher passed away so my leave was cut short and I participated in the funeral parade at St Pauls Cathedral.  It all passed off with minimum disruption.  Some scumbag lefties tried to heckle along the Strand but they were drowned out by a group of Falkland veterans.

In July I took a group of sailors over to the Isle of Man for Tynwald Day.  Nobody got arrested, so I deem that a success!

Divisional Nightmare

I am sat in week two of Divisional Officers course.  The course is full of very immature Junior Officers. Their constant prattling on is giving my arsehole headache!

Do as I say, not as I do!

The time has come for annual reports to be submitted to the promotion boards which sit in Portsmouth.

Over the last three months or so my least favourite officer, who also happened to be my Divisional Officer has been constantly reminding people of the importance of completing the annual reports.  This has been especially important due to the ship decommissioning and people moving to other ships.

Now I find myself in the unfortunate position of waiting for the same person to complete my report.  He left the ship before it paid off and now I am in limbo, unable to contact him to finish what he started.

Maybe I didn't hide my disdain for him quite as well I thought!

HMS YORK Decommissioning Ceremony - Portsmouth Dockyard 27 September 2012

Its Roll On Me Time

My final entry in to base port has now come and gone.

Procedure Alpha passed off reasonably well, as did the Gun Salute with Fort Blockhouse, and Round Tower and Old Portsmouth were full.  Pleasingly, the Gunnery Officer had left the ship in Hull and so couldn't interfere!

As we moved up harbour some ships manned the side and cheered as York passed by.  That was a nice touch and they looked very good.

Now all that remains is to decommission in a few days.

Some Jock talked about Freedom!

HMS York has now handed back the Freedom of the City of York.  The parade went off without a hitch and my boss only cocked up a little bit.

The Junior Ratings looked presentable and marched fairly well.  The Senior Rates however were a shambles.  They let the side down, thinking it would all be easy.

In the lead up to it all the Gunnery Officer was really getting on my tits.  He is one of those Naval Officers who just has to say something, even when he doesn't know what he is talking about!  Such a simple parade, if only he could just do as he is told.  The kind of bloke who makes things more difficult by his actions.  Non stop panic but now he has gone and I am glad to be rid of him.  It has been increasingly difficult to hide my disdain for him as the year has gone on.  It just goes to show, a posh school and university can't stop a bloke being an imbecile.  Quite a few times I had to point out to him that I didn't join up as an admiral and work my way down!  I don't expect my annual report to be glowing!

Frenchies

My last foreign run ashore has just passed me by.  I never imagined 21 years ago that my last foreign port would be Brest!  I went for a run down to one of the coves along past the U-Boat pens.  It was on a Friday and the Frenchies obviously secure early.  Needless to say the back and side gates were shut when I got back to the dockyard and so I had to run round to the main gate.  By the time I got back to the ship I had run 7.5 miles and was done in.

Whilst conducting some parade training on the jetty in the naval dockyard one of my fine Petty Officers was impressing with his pace stick.  All was going well until he found the only hole in the jetty....  now his pace stick is floating somewhere in a French dockyard.