Haloman

Not really, they're eating the dog. . . . . . Then again ?

I've managed to scrounge a suitable rubbish bin for my room (actually a very small plywood partitioned space, if I'm being strictly accurate). It's an old .50 cal ammo box with the lid missing.

One more week and then I start on my journey home, via Jalalabad, Bagram and Kabul. And there's a bottle of fizzy white in Dubai International with my name on it.

I'm afraid it's been another long and pretty miserable Tramadol night here outside Jalalabad. After taking one tablet at 23:00 and watching Dexter until well after midnight, I finally drifted off until 02:08, by which time the pain was becoming too bad to sleep through. I can't say that I have noticed any positive painkilling effects whatsoever from the Tramadol and I found myself forced to get dressed and go for a wander. By 02;30 I found myself in the Cardiovascular gym, pedalling away on the hand cycle, trying to sort out my neck and left shoulder. After 10 minutes, it was no better and possibly worse, so I opted for watching a war movie on the TV, whilst gently walking on the treadmill, swinging my arms in an exaggerated manner all the while. Trying anything to keep moving really. Afterwards I popped into the DFAC to enjoy a mug of tea and some toast, watching Australia bowl out Sri Lanka in a 20/20 match whilst the muslim Terps ate and drank themselves silly in advance of the day's fasting, Eventually, I found myself sitting in the garden under the Jacaranda, Pomegranate and Fig trees listening once again to the Muezzin beyond the wire making his call to prayer, as the darkness gradually abated. By 04:15 I was back in bed and I managed to sleep until a little after 06:00 after which I had to get up again in order to check over the generators and try to keep the pain away by keeping as mobile as possible. It's becoming both tiring and tiresome this trapped nerve thing.

I've been swearing at Joomla menus for a while.

My Amazon.co.uk order has shipped.

I too have just trimmed my beard. Do you think it's contageous?

On Saturday our small forward operating base received a visit from General Petraeus. He was here for a memorial service for 4 lads from here who were killed last week.

It took me more than 2 hours to cut the back lawn this morning. I'm surprised I didn't discover a lost tribe in there.

I've been working all night on rebuilding a selection of switches and routers, which all managed to lose their config files, so they'd defaulted to factory defaults. I think someone's been playing silly buggers. Config files don't get wiped from flash memory drives by power spikes.

Last night I cut my toenails.

In January, I stuck my thumb out and got picked up by a Black Hawk which was refuelling and going my way. I thought we'd be going straight to Salerno, but no, we did a 90 minute low level patrol through the Hindu Kush first, with me sitting between the two gunners, one either side of me. Most of the peaks and ridges, we cleared by tens of feet, only to dive down the other side. It was pretty enjoyable flying and I got to see a lot of remote areas.

Me too, taking off into a 45 knot headwind meant we went up like we were in a lift. Sea-King there, Huey on the way back.

The place was full of people who couldn't keep still. If you joined a queue in there, you felt like you were doing the Conga. I believe it's called "doing the Cokey Hokey"

I don't have to go on a convoy tomorrow. I'll be taking a helicopter instead.

On Wednesday I took part in a road convoy through Jalalabad. One of the soldiers on the convoy with me got shot in the head by a sniper. Luckily, his helmet took the force of the round and he wasn't seriously injured. However, just up the road a suicide bomber killed 12 civilians. Yesterday, 45 labourers working on a road building project between Gardez and Khost, for my other PRT, were murdered by the Taliban in Paktiya Province. Today I'm doing my laundry. Tomorrow, I'm on another road convoy. On Tuesday, I'm hoping to be on my way home. Sure as hell beats signing on in St Helens for 65 quid a week.

Today, after much searching and cross referencing, I finally found a compatible Pleuelsatz with which to overhaul my 46 year old Kurbelwelle.

Strangely enough, no. Though they seem unlikely to be able to help me with sourcing parts for such an old model. They seem to cater mainly for later models, with the occasional exception. However, I've emailed them and added them to my list of favourites for possible use in the future. Ta.

I'm struggling to find the correct Pleuelsatz to overhaul a 46 year old Kurbelwelle. I might have to go down the bespoke engineering route if I can't find the correct parts. Still, if it was easy, the rewards wouldn't outweigh the efforts involved.

I don't think they were actually real...

I'm not quite a martyr to it in the way you've described above. But, if I don't get anti-inflamitories down me in some form, pretty quickly then it gets pretty painful. Then because I can't walk properly, the rest of my leg comes out in sympathy as I put strain on other muscles and tendons and before you know it, I'm hobbling about like an old man. The knock on effects in my leg can take longer to sort themselves out than the gout. I only tend to get it in one joint, possibly due to an old injury sustained in a forestry related accident, almost 20 years ago. It's quite amazing really, in just how many different ways a tree can find to try and kill you.

It only tends to flare up 2 or 3 times a year and if I catch it quickly enough during the first 12 hours, then Ibuprofen gets it under control within half a day and gone completely within another couple of days after that. Because it's quite mild and only appears in one foot, I'm unwilling to take anything long term for it.

My gout hasn't reappeared for over a week.

Today, I've been playing in Huey's and Seakings.

I thought so. The dressing gown with ballistic armour accessories can be a difficult look to get right, as part of a spring collection. However I think I've managed to pull it off. Keep an eye out for it on the Paris catwalks, it'll be all the range in another month of so, honestly !