[rachb]

I'll try to Boris

: sleep:

[Kaz]

Evening, Boris!

We'll certainly try our best!

[splodge0]

All quiet at sea Chapettes

I'm getting as bad sticks - oh dear....

[Kaz]

It IS very quiet today!

You were bright and early this morning, Admiral . . . . . and on your birthday too!



That's devotion for you!

[BusyBee]

I've been suffering from this particular disease for years. Although until now I always put it down to my star sign - Pisces - always looking in two different directions.

I am well known to be cleaning the bathroom then go downstairs and starting to do something completely different.

As OH says he is never sure what I will do next

I've just popped in cos I am having a completely horrendous day at work, the phone wont stop ringing, there's clients to see coming out of my ears and the b****y computer has crashed on me twice - it REALLY IS THE END.

[Boris]

Up the motorway and back,
Don't be late ,You'll get the sack,
Back to check upon you all,
Shoulders back,
Now all stand tall!

rachb , you were looking a little green last night. Hope you will be well enought to do your shift tonight.

Attention all. See you later

[BigSister]

Im here now
Ready and waiting

[Boris]

Glad to see you Bigsister,
need all the help we can get what with the captain not here and the Admiral gone AWOL !

Whatever shall we do !!

[rachb]

Feeling a little less green today Boris and here again ready for action:xyxwave :

[Boris]

Glad to here it Rachb...
Well done Carry on

[Amy]

Evening Boris

[Kaz]

Evening, Boris!

My trusty Sergeants are doing just swell
I've done a good job and trained them well
But the Admiral's excused from duty today
So he can celebrate his xxxxth?? birthday!

[Boris]

I am not sure the Navy permits it's officers to take 'leave' on their birthday.
I hope the Admiral will not get himself into trouble....too much Rum can be a problem you know !

Are you sure you did the right thing Captain Kaz???

The long week is over,
thank goodness we said,
After working and working,
it's NOW time for bed.........(said Zebedee!)

Night shift on

[rachb]

Nightshift ready Boris,If I can stay awake!!

[Mairi]

Hi Rachb. Here's a cat who looks a little like Rosie. Next time I see Janette, though, I must ask her if she will scan in a picture of her and post it on the Pets thread.

[Kaz]

Posted by Boris
Are you sure you did the right thing Captain Kaz???

Oh, I think I have, Boris.

After all, I did give poor Splodge a really hard time earlier in this thread - taking away his treasured 'signature' - so I think he deserves a little treat on his birthday.

Hope you've had a good one, Admiral.

But I'll expect you back bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow!

[splodge0]

The Admiralty offered me a years secondment to Hawaii, but I turned them down so that I would be available for this most vital task.

Up periscopes!

Thanks for the birthday treat, Captain Kaz. I'll be up to Scotland to collect directly..............

[Boris]

COme on now you laggards...

Stand by your beds ...



HUP, HUP, HUP,


Attennnnnnnnnntionnnn


(thick head Admiral ?....)

[splodge0]

CHEEK!

[splodge0]

After a lonely vigil in the waters off the Isle of Weight, the Fleet returned to find a sneaky posting by "our" Boris!!

Had it not been for the early warning system put in place by the Admiralty, those guarding this thrad might well have feared that the said thread was indeed in danger of finishing with Boris.

"Never in the field of human conflict"..... etc!

We are here!!!

[Boris]

My Hero !!

[Amy]

Morning Boris

[Romantic Old Bird]

ll this talk of matters nautical puts me in mind of:




THE REVENGE
A Ballad of the Fleet
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892)

I
At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away,
'Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!'
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ' 'Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?'

II
Then spake Sir Richard Grenville; 'I know you are no coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain'

III
So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day,
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men fromt he land
Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below;
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

IV
He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
'Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!
There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.'
And Sir Richard said again: 'We be all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet.'

V
Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah, and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,
And the little Revenge ran on thro/ the long sea-lane between.

VI
Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their decks an laugh'd,
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft
Running on and on, till delay'd
By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons,
And up-shadowing high above us with he yawning tiers of guns,
Took breath from out sails, and we stay'd.

VII
And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud
Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud,
Four galleons drew away
>From the Spanish fleet that day,
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,
And the battle-thunder broke from them all.

VIII
But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself and went
Having that within her womb that had left her ill content;
And the rest they came aboard us, and athey fought us hand to hand,
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,
And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land.

IX
And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.
For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more -
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

X
For he said "Fight on! fight on!'
Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck;
And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone,
With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck,
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,
And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head,
And he said 'Fight on! fight on!'

XI
And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea,
And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay around us all in a ring;
But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd that we still could sting,
So they watch'd what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we,
Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,
And half of the rest of us maim'd for life
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent;
And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride,
'We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die - does it matter when?
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner - sink her, split her in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!

XII
And the gunner said 'Ay, ay,' but the seamen made reply:
'We have children, we have wives,
And the Lord hath spared our lives.
We will make the Spanaird promise, if we yield, to let us go;
We shall live to fight and to strike another blow.'
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.

XIII
And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:
'I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valient man and true;
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do:
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!'
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.

XIV
And they stared at the dead that had been so valient and true,
And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap
That he dared her with one ship and his English few!
Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,
But they sank his body with honour down into the deep,
And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew,
And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her own;
When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke from sleep,
And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,
Till it smote on their hulls and sails and their masts and their flags,
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd navy of Spain,
And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags
To be lost evermore on the main.

Had to learn that little ditty at school

Ahoy me hearties........

[Mairi]

Originally posted by Romantic Old Bird
Had to learn that little ditty at school

All of it???? :shoc ked:

[Boris]

Thank Goodness all I had to learn was...

A life on the Ocean Wave !!!


Ahoy there me hearties.....anyone aboard ?


Perhaps not , it is Saturday afternnon after all. everyone is asleep.


SSSSSHHHHHHHHHH !