The weekend started early last week, with a cocktail party aboard HMS Endurance. I felt honoured to have been asked, as I thought riff-raff weren’t invited to these events, so the crew would have a good impression of the Falklands - it turns out I am still riff-raff and was the last of the last resorts for an invite!
Fortunately my work colleagues were in the same boat (no pun intended), so I didn’t feel too left out and came to the conclusion it was about time the Navy met the real Falkland Islanders…this plan was to be shattered later that evening.
Being a cocktail party I had to dig in the deepest cupboards to find something suitable to wear and actually scrubbed up quite well, in my dress and jacket, I think? I was collected by Tim a work mate and we arrived at the dock at 6:15pm sharp to board a 12m launch (Speedwell). This was our taxi to the ship, which then made me wonder why did I wear a dress again?? At least my shoes were fairly practical – unlike some I saw!
When we approached the ship I noticed the angle of the gang way and thought again about my decision to wearing a dress! Stepping across to the gang-way was fine and I slowly ascended the stairs. Half way up I stopped and looked back down to the launch to see Stevie (an old school mate) stretching his neck to look out of his window – cheeky little bugger must remember to slap him when I go back!
Once aboard we settled in with the others on the flight deck and quickly located the bar, which probably doesn’t shock anyone. There we had a choice of Gin, Rum, Wine or Orange Juice to drink so, trying to be a little classy, I took a glass of white wine. This later turned into red wine, which I still haven’t fathomed out, but assume I stole someone’s glass and just forgot what colour I was drinking – well wine is wine when you’ve had a few glasses. One problem I seemed to be having as the evening progressed was getting the wine to stay in the glass…and how red was proving a bad colour – I believe there are a few stains on the deck now, but I put it down to the ship moving and just kept shuffling away from the spills.
About half way through the evening, while in a small group, it was noted by one of the officers, we didn’t sound like Falkland Islanders. I thought back to my plan of being the riff-raff Falkland Islanders and how we would show them, but was shot down in flames when it transpired I was the only person in our group to be born here…bugger!
These were not to be my only embarrassing moments, as later in the evening I spotted someone, I thought I knew, across the deck and bumbled off to say Hello. He was talking to another officer when I walked into their conversation and said quite confidently “Hi Phil!” The man turned to me slightly bemused and replied with “I’m Joe, but you can call me Phil if you like!” (This was to be his worst regret by the time we got off the ship!) The officer whose name was Steve (but don’t quote me on that as I got Phil/Joe wrong!) laughed and said “Have you met Mary?” Little did he know and looked slightly embarrassed when I did finally introduce myself as Marie. After a proper introduction - It turned out the guy who I thought was Phil the History teacher was in actual fact Joe the Veterinarian and Steve was infact Pete the 2nd Engineer, but i was still Marie the drunken idiot getting peoples names wrong!
Fortunately my work colleagues were in the same boat (no pun intended), so I didn’t feel too left out and came to the conclusion it was about time the Navy met the real Falkland Islanders…this plan was to be shattered later that evening.
Being a cocktail party I had to dig in the deepest cupboards to find something suitable to wear and actually scrubbed up quite well, in my dress and jacket, I think? I was collected by Tim a work mate and we arrived at the dock at 6:15pm sharp to board a 12m launch (Speedwell). This was our taxi to the ship, which then made me wonder why did I wear a dress again?? At least my shoes were fairly practical – unlike some I saw!
When we approached the ship I noticed the angle of the gang way and thought again about my decision to wearing a dress! Stepping across to the gang-way was fine and I slowly ascended the stairs. Half way up I stopped and looked back down to the launch to see Stevie (an old school mate) stretching his neck to look out of his window – cheeky little bugger must remember to slap him when I go back!
Once aboard we settled in with the others on the flight deck and quickly located the bar, which probably doesn’t shock anyone. There we had a choice of Gin, Rum, Wine or Orange Juice to drink so, trying to be a little classy, I took a glass of white wine. This later turned into red wine, which I still haven’t fathomed out, but assume I stole someone’s glass and just forgot what colour I was drinking – well wine is wine when you’ve had a few glasses. One problem I seemed to be having as the evening progressed was getting the wine to stay in the glass…and how red was proving a bad colour – I believe there are a few stains on the deck now, but I put it down to the ship moving and just kept shuffling away from the spills.
About half way through the evening, while in a small group, it was noted by one of the officers, we didn’t sound like Falkland Islanders. I thought back to my plan of being the riff-raff Falkland Islanders and how we would show them, but was shot down in flames when it transpired I was the only person in our group to be born here…bugger!
These were not to be my only embarrassing moments, as later in the evening I spotted someone, I thought I knew, across the deck and bumbled off to say Hello. He was talking to another officer when I walked into their conversation and said quite confidently “Hi Phil!” The man turned to me slightly bemused and replied with “I’m Joe, but you can call me Phil if you like!” (This was to be his worst regret by the time we got off the ship!) The officer whose name was Steve (but don’t quote me on that as I got Phil/Joe wrong!) laughed and said “Have you met Mary?” Little did he know and looked slightly embarrassed when I did finally introduce myself as Marie. After a proper introduction - It turned out the guy who I thought was Phil the History teacher was in actual fact Joe the Veterinarian and Steve was infact Pete the 2nd Engineer, but i was still Marie the drunken idiot getting peoples names wrong!
Having already made an arse of myself, I decided to ask Steve if there was any chance of a tour of the ship, Joe was also keen and eventually Nuala and Sian joined us. While the others headed back to shore we had a tour of the ship and eventually ended up in the Officers Bar, where we met John, Charlene, John and Stephanie more locals who had also scored a tour and drinks away from the main event.
As I passed the sofa a guy stopped me and asked if I would pass the tea-towel sitting on the bar, directly under the bell…you seafarers know what’s coming next don’t you? Yes…I toddled over, picked up the towel and started walking away when “DING DING!” The bloody towel was attached to the bell and I soon learned it was customary for whoever rang the bell to buy that round of drinks – talk about set up! Fortunately a nice officer chap felt sorry for me and bought the round…being a girl has its advantages sometimes.
After a few more drinks we were called for the last launch at 10:30, so were escorted back to the gang-way and Speedwell patiently awaiting. The trip in was a blur and before I knew it was staggering up Philomel Hill arm-in-arm with Nuala, heading to the Vic.
I believe it was packed in the Vic as there was some folk music event happening and I’m not going to admit to dancing to a few country tunes…damn just did! Well I put it down to the alcohol - it will make you do crazy things…like dancing to country! Eventually we were kicked out and I headed home only to get almost to the door step and remember I was staying at my parent’s house way back up west! It’s only a half hour walk (sober), but seemed to take a long while to get there. I was very pleased to crawl into my bed for some sleep, although it felt like an hour it was the best hours’ sleep I have had in a long time.
