I worked on a couple of different a/c types in the noughties which were very very busy deployments wise. Consequently I deployed twice a year for about eight years in a row. I forget how many times I had to go to clothing stores to pick up the latest and greatest version of Desert clothing / MTP old / MTP new. A headtorch here a gerber there, thermals, bergens, camelbacks, cold weather clothing etc etc my garage became a very well stocked army surplus store most of which was never used or indeed taken on deployment. Add to this a time at sea on a harrier sqn with a separate kitting for naval stuff and some time on firefighting duties and foot and mouth and you will understand the enormity of my kit issue over the years...
On my last deployment we went into operational kitting and follwed the storeman around with a huge bin on wheels where he deposited items various. We then signed for the kit in our blue book and proceeded to take the bin on wheels out to our cars and home to the ever growing kit mountain
when i got to the car i looked down and there amongst the kit was my blue book - the same book that i had signed at Halton all those years ago but never had in my possession. The suppliers had obviously mistakenly dropped it into my wheeely bin. I wish i could say i was an honest airman but unfortunately i drove off with the blue book home. A year later I left the service, had a rather straight forward clearing process and handed in a few bit of useless worn kit amd that was it. I waited a couple of years before the ebay sale....