Day 11: Rainy days and saying goodbye

So it's been raining. Quite a lot. The temperature also got down to 20.6 the other night - freezing!!! Today was another rainy day. But the sort of rain that's really fine and you don't notice, and that blows sideways in the wind and soaks you through (technical term: drizzle). 

Today Helen and I squared away the last remaining pieces of our handover and as of lunch time she was officially done. I spent the afternoon sorting out some paperwork and then drove home, in the rain, and went for dinner. 

Today is Helen's last actual night on island, and although the alcohol ban continues, we had some leaving drinks in the mess bar. It's not exactly what I was expecting on a military detachment, that the last place I should find is the mess bar, but after almost two weeks I finally made my debut. It's actually very nice ...And the diet coke was lovely. 

At around 8pm I could hear the distant warblings of someone singing Niel Diamond's Sweet Caroline beckoning in the distance. I told Helen and her response - head over to the naafi bar early and get cracking on the karaoke! 

The naafi bar is just like the one in the Falklands. Except obviously that's not in the tropics so it doesn't have open sides and palm trees on the terrace... Most of the military guys couldn't face a night in the naafi without a beer so they thinned out pretty early ...the diet coke was lovely there too. 

Sober karaoke is great!! Helen and I went straight for the book and put our names down for summer lovin'. I assumed there would be a wait of an hour or so while the hoards of other keen karaoke-ists queued impatiently and went before us, but within about two minutes our names had been called. It's fair to say we nailed it. She was John Travolta, and I Olivia Newton John. We had a good night and it was sad for Helen as she had lots of goodbyes and had clearly made some close friends out here. 

Legend of our star-like talents had spread, so without wanting to disappoint our fans we took to the stage again. This time I was helping Helen out with a fitting farewell nod to the end of her tour. After trying, and failing, to convince any of her male friends to duet with her, I stepped up and offered to be her Patrick Swayze. She said a little speech first, and then the crowd hushed into a stunned silence and admired in awe at our pitch perfect harmonies. The instrumental came, and of course, the epic part in the movie - The Lift. The crowd cheered as Helen ran towards me and I lifted her... about three centimeters off the ground. 

It was a bloody good night, though my account of the karaoke may not be entirely accurate. Perhaps it was the diet coke talking...

Good bye Helen, I will miss you xx