After 10 pints, or 1L of Vodka, I can't even speak, never mind curse - in any language!
Anyway, after almost three hours, I got the home-made stencils decals on, 23 of them, plus one decal from the spare decals files, the latter being a small, white letter 'E' on the lower nose cowling. I found a photo of three of the Squadron pilots, standing beneath the nose of a Spit VIII, which showed the repeated individual code letter, apparently in white (This was to aid ground crews in marshalling the aircraft on return from operations, and was fairly common in many RAF squadrons.), so it's fair to assume that HM-E had it's letter on the nose too.
The decals went on quite well, although a bit tricky in some places, as they are very small, and quite delicate. I'd made a number of spares, as I anticipated some being damaged during application, and I'm quite pleased that I only lost three, two being the tiny oil specification instruction on the port engine cowling - a real pain to apply, as access was difficult, with such a small decal needing to be placed centrally on a hatch cover measuring about 2.5 mm across.
The pics show the majority of the home-made decals, and the white letter 'E', which are still settling, and yet to be cleaned-up and sealed with a further gloss clear coat. (Sorry about the poor quality of the pics - the light scatter from the gloss coat limited things a bit !
So now, there are only six roundels and two fin flashes to apply, once the decal sheet arrives from Hannant's. Meanwhile, it's time to get to work on the prop, canopy, landing gear and gunsight, some of which I hope to show in the next up-date.