Hello Again!

Well, I've not been very good at keeping this up to date. In fact it's over a year since I posted... shocking!

Anyway, things are about to change. I'm setting up to post from my new phone, which arrives on Wednesday and with an 8Mp camera, means I should be able to upload some cool photos easily. I'll give it a go anyway.

In the meantime... what have I been up to. Well the highlight of the last few months has been Exercise Snow Eagle. A ski course, in Oberstordf, Southern Germany covering alpine skiing, ski touring and winter survivial skills. It was great, I really enjoyed myself and the kids got a huge amount out of the week.


Here's Steve and Charlotte having a break. Look at the amazing hills!

Edinburgh Military Tattoo

Paul, Stevie & myself took eighteen cadets to Edinburgh at the beginning of August. We stayed in cadet accommodation at HMS Caledonia in Rosyth which was great as lots of the participants from the Tattoo were staying too. We kind of got a little bit of a sneak preview of what we were to see, and it was exciting.

Paul at the Warrant Officer's Bar in the Royal Yacht!

We made a weekend of it and did lots of other things during our stay. The visit to the Royal Yacht Britannia was much more interesting than I anticpated. In fact, it was facinating and the way they have set up the tour is really good. You are given a device, kind of like a big mobile phone, when you board the ship. As you move around the ship there are numbered points which, when you press the appropriate buttons on the device, you get a chunk of information about. To cap it off, they had a fabulous sweetie shop on board. I had strawberries & cream fudge, rum & raisin fudge and pecan & maple syrup fudge!

The original plan was to spend the afternoon in Ocean Terminal, but the kids weren't all that keen on shopping so we took an open top bus tour which allowed us to get on and off the bus at different stops. We made for the Royal Mile where the cadets were able to enjoy the street performers and atmosphere of the Edinburgh Festival. This was the first time I had been in Edinburgh during the festival and it was great - kind of exciting and certainly entertaining. They all made it back to the meeting point at the designated time which was a relief (my biggest nightmare - losing a cadet!)

Then came the highlight of the trip - the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Driving the buses to the parking was interesting and the queues of people were unbelieveable. Talk about being worried about losing cadets. Scary!!! We all made it safely to the Castle and took our seats. The atmosphere was electric and everyone was really excited. Then the show began!

Fantastic is the only word I need to use. It was awesome from start to finish. I love pipe music anyway so the the Massed Pipes & Drums were great. The Taipei First Girls' Senior High School Honour Guard and Drum Corps were amazing. They were throwing rifles around like they had been doing it since they were in their cots. I have to say though, it was a man that designed their uniforms - short skirts and long White Boots!

The Mounted Band of the Royals & Blues were fab. The horses are amazing and so placid - nothing seemed to phase them. The Imps motorcycle display team were ... scary! Some of them were tiny and they were zooming around like mad things on wheels. They did jumps and cross overs which much have taken so much practise and I bet lots of crashes. There were highland dancers, the Trinidad and Tobago Limbo Dancers and the Middlesex County Volunteers who were in period costume. Of course, there was a lone piper on the castle. Very moving, I definately had a tear in my eye.

But the highlight of the show was the Band of The Moscow Military Conservatoire, whose combination of drill, music and humour was spectacular. They came on and I thought, oh this is going to just be a drill demo... oh how wrong can you be. Their timing was immaculate, they kept doing little quirky moves which made everyone laugh but in reality the training and dedication must have been huge. Fantastic, my absolute favourite of the show. This video doesn't really do it justice but at least it will give you the idea. You can view all of the BBC Edinburgh Tattoo Videos at on the BBC website.

We all went to the Edinburgh Dungeons on Sunday morning. It was quite good, and their was a fair bit of history in it. Jamie, who had been the year before and should have known what to expect, just kept screaming but he kept everyone else amused. We went back to Caledonia for lunch then headed for the Fordel Firs activity centre where the cadets had a go at climbing, archery and a challenge course. The weather was really wet which made the challenge course interesting (and the bus journey back to Barracks).

Sunday evening we opted to go Ten Pin Bowling which was fun. The Warrant Officer couldn't get a ball big enough for his fat fingers, or at least that was his excuse! When we got back to the billet, the Cadet's invited us to a 'party' which we decided we would go to but we were all so shattered we just sat around chatting and then it was to late.

Monday morning we packed up and headed north again. We stopped at Killicrankie and walked down to view the soldier's leap. Pretty awsome that a human could have made that jump, but I am often amazed at what people can do when under pressure. The scenery was spectacular and I have promised myself to stop there again when I have more time to have a proper look around.

It was a long journey home but it was worth it for a great weekend.

Machrihanish Camp 2007 - The News

All our cadets and staff had a great time at Machrihanish. Haven't managed to get all the details from the cadets yet, but the staff are on a high! All I've heard about since Paul got back is "when we were at camp" and "then this happened" - definite "band camp" feel (you'll know what I'm talking about if you've ever watched American Pie).

The cadets doing Radio Controlled Flying managed to crash 4 planes the first week, and 3 the second week but they did manage to build some planes too so I guess that makes up for it. The cadets doing fieldcraft had a great night exercise, which didn't finish until 6am - how cool! The shooting module cadets passed Weapons Handling Tests for both the No. 8 and the L98 rifles and managed some pretty good scores in the live firing.

Other modules available included First Aid, Duke Of Edinburgh Expedition, Police Flight and Leadership. Stole this leadership video from YouTube which shows what they were up to during Week 1.



All cadets took part in Air Experience Flying in the Grob Tutor and some got flights in a Lynx helicopter. Cpl Gray took his bagpipes with him and was lucky enough to be asked to pipe the RAF Scotland Commendant onto the camp.

Plans for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo

Well, today I have been working on finalising the arrangments for our trip to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Personally, I have wanted to attend the tattoo for years and we have been trying to get tickets but they are like gold dust. This year though we decided to go as a Squadron and yippee we got 30 tickets (booked in November last year), excellent!

We are staying at the Sea Cadet accomodation at Rosyth and are going to make a bit of a weekend of it. We hope to arrive at Rosyth around 4pm on Friday afternoon and after dinner plan to take the cadets to one of the local Air Cadet ranges for some .22 marksmanship (an excellent tool to teach youngster self discipline).

On Saturday we are going to visit the Royal Yacht Brittannia at Leith. Their website states we will tour "five of Britannia’s magnificent decks, taking you through the fabulous State Apartments and crew’s quarters, and ending in the gleaming Engine Room". Photo "Men's Quarters in the Britannia" by cyocum, Flickr.

After dinner we will then be attending the highlight of the Trip, the Tattoo before heading back to Rosyth. On Sunday we are taking a trip down the Edinburgh Dungeons (bit scary for me but hey ho) then we are heading for Fordel Firs activity centre for some archery, climbing and the challenge course. We will then round off with some swimming or bowling on Sunday evening before heading home again the following morning.

Sound great, I'm so glad I am part of the Air Cadets!

Off to Machrihanish Camp 07

Five our our cadets and 2 staff left Thurso this morning to take part in a Regional Camp at MOD Machrihanish. During the week each will be working on a particular module, as well as doing some flying, sports and general getting to know everyone. The modules our cadets selected were Fieldcraft, Shooting, and Radio Controlled Model Aircraft Flying but the staff members were more adventurous and selected the Duke of Edinburgh Expedition module.

Machrihanish is a former RAF station, close to Campbeltown in the south of Scotland. It was formerly home to the US Navy SEAL commando unit but at the end of the cold war it was handed back to the MOD. The base is now on a 'care and maintenance' contract which means that it can be used by civilian airlines but the MOD still use it for exercises.

Lets hope all our cadets behave themselves. I did have a little chat with them all about "representing Thurso Squadron" and "behaving accordingly". I am not really concerned, as we are very lucky and have a really good bunch of kids at the moment. I might be slightly more concerned about the staff though!!!