We woke up and stood outside for inspection, it was light and the base looked quite different, maybe as it had been snowing hard, the weather was certainly not like what we had experienced down south in Kandahar and I could hear one or two words exchanged between the lads about the temperature that I cannot repeat.

We got the tour around the base, it is quite a small and compact place however, it has all the amenities that we could require.

The views are spectacular of the surrounding mountains. There is so many personnel from so many different nations in one little spot it’s unbelievable and so many officers that if we saluted them all we would be doing this constantly, so we have been informed to only salute the top commanders.

We got to meet the rest of our platoon which consists of a number of Italians, they are a great set of lads and some of them are quite fluent in English.

The platoon went out for the first time in a convoy up to another base, over the other side of the city to conduct some training.

The streets are like London just ten times more congested, Afghans do not require driving tests here so the roads are somewhat crazier than back home and what with the threat of suicide bombers and roadside bombs it made for one adrenaline filled ride believe me.

Over the next few days we conducted on site training to learn what to do as force protection for HQ ISAF.