The field exercises were some of the best times of my life, at Carrick training grounds, one of the biggest training grounds in the British army, we patrolled the roads in and around our Harbour area (where we sleep, eat or anything like that) and set up sentry,

Night stag was the worst, it's being a night sentry and sit in a sentry position, freezing cold and having to wake up, in that sleepy state, I have said a Lot of weird things, from Elephants to Pineapples, even one about a katana, I really don't know what I dreamt about those nights and what's worst then that, is that some one manages to Fuck up the stag list, so you end up doing another stag, 1 hour after you come off it, when I wasn't supposed to do it again that night. I'll kill the person who screwed up on that one, when I find them.
On one exercise, we went out on a night patrol, then told that we had to recce a possible enemy position, when we got into the fields nearing the position, Flares started to go up, lighting the skies, and to make that even more awkward, I was half way over the fence, I had to get my leg over, ran two steps, and dived to the floor, pressing my head to the  ground so the sudden, bright light of the flare, doesn't blind me or messes up my natural night vision.

After the flare went out, we moved to a small circle of bushes, and deployed into all round defence, me, being apart of Charlie fire team, had to move up with our section commander, as Delta fire team, which is the fire team that suppresses the enemy, then Charlie fire team charges the position with Bayonets, Grenades and close range, rapid fire from their personnel weapons, to clear out that position.

Anyway, Charlie fire team, which had our section commander and 4 people, including me, we had to sneak up into a position that gave us clear view, so we could use our CWS, it would assist use in seeing at night, we moved carefully, trying to avoid tripwires that are attached to flares, once in position, we crawled a few metres over cover to get eyes on, (other word, see the enemy/objective) but we could barely see the outline of the farm.
We had to move closer to the target, we did get eyes on, and I saw a small wall in front of the building, then the blindingly bright lights from a land rover parked in the front, I saw a figure moving forward, I knew I shouldn't have watched too closely, as that twat sent up a flare, and I saw the whole thing in my night vision sight/CWS, and that hurt.

Eventually, we left the point and headed back to Delta fire team, taking the same route that we took on the way in, then we headed back, I climbed over the fence and the second My boots hit the floor, another flare goes up from the farmyard.
'Nearly, you bastard' I thought as I knew that I nearly got stuck on the fence with a flare going up, again. Then headed back to the harbour area, to get some well needed sleep.

The food, that's a whole different matter, Ready Made to Eat meals, or rations, boil in the bag meals, good warm, but still taste horrid, though some are better then others, but most meals have Tuna in them, and the results of having rations for a whole week, well... Don't go too well on the toilet when your back at camp, shall I say.
(I can't get enough of the ration packs peanut butter, it's the only thing I like, and he powdered energy drinks are ok, just add to water but I don't use them due to the amount of sugar in them.

Putting hat to he side for the time being, in the blocks (back at camp) life is chilled, we go out on runs to keep fitness, or chill out, weekends here are also reasonable, I can go home on some weekends with 48 hour leave passes, or go out for the day around the town or to Leeds.
Some lads go to a certain places, for men only, if anyone know what I mean, (it's an inappropriate place, don't ask how I know that).

Even at this moment, we are preparing for our next exercise, and what a hell that's going to be, cold, snow and rain, our shell-scrapes,(holes in mthe ground, that you eat and sleep in, then dig out when the mud walk caves in).

I'm back from that exercise now, I should have published the last bit but forgot, anyway,  we dug our pits, rain and wind soaked us through, our stag was still bad, I couldn't find my way to it at night, and swore like hell every time my face made contact with a tree branch, I've got cuts and scratches all over my face, of the four 24 hour ration packs I received through out the exercise, I barely ate 1 and a half of the ration packs, I barely drank three litres of water, I just couldn't.

I'm use to going without, but I must try to because I need to stay in a healthy condition so I can fight, as we survive to fight, not fight to survive, being the enemy on the last night, though.
That was good, we slept in a shelter, or most of us, anyway, it snowed that night. Ha, I am happy I wasn't in the other platoons who were outside that night, then in the morning, we set up a position in a field so others could attack us, I switched my weapon to automatic and fired off a whole magazine, then switched back to repetition and fire one round after another.

Best morning ever, but the worst part is cleaning the kit, no matter what you do, the training area always seem to get into every square inch of your kit, that's makes a hell of a job when you get back, took me about 4 hours to lean most of the kit.