Hi Ben, Thanks for the words and I do accept that I cocked it up technically. The way it was worded was something like this;
"Good afternoon G-XXXX, squawk XXXX and press ident. The QFE is 1018 and it'll be a left base for runway 05".
I repeated the message and got a ,"Readback correct G-XXXX".
And so I continued until I thought it was time to let them know where I was. At no time was I "cleared" or told to "Join" anything. My mistake although all the FI's and PPL's I've discussed this with understood my reason for continuing and in most cases admitted they may well have done the same. The reason for my post isn't to whine that I was hard done to or unlucky, it's for fellow studes to hopefully learn from my mistake.