New job, new era

Okay, for those of you living on a planet not in our solar system, it may come us news that I started a new job this week. Not only a new job, but also a new career. Scary stuff.

So, first week. Was fun.

Got email telling me to turn up at 10.30. Yay, like that idea muchly. Now, outside the rush hour, home to new work is an hour, pretty much on the nose. Inside the rush hour I had this idea that at least doubling that would be a fair estimated as there is to contend with, lemme see;

Getting out of Ashford (mostly okay)

M20 at Maidstone (slow but okay)

M26/25 junction (slow)

Clackett Lane (slow to standstill)

Purley Cross (guaranteed queuing time of one hour)

So, I thought I’d leave home at 8am.
Got there 9.30, surprising everyone, including myself. Chatted with Receptionist, Director and IT boy until boss came in at 10.30. looked around the place and met everyone.

Boss was in receipt of new computer. I was in receipt of Very Old computer, an interim machine until Old computer was ready for me, an interim machine until New machine is authorised and purchased. Went for lunch with boss whilst both new and Very Old computers were being persuaded to work.

Nice local pub with decent lunch menu.

Came back to find new computer throwing tantrums and Very Old computer failing to get out of bed.

Managed a little bit of computer time to play around and got first assignment issued to keep me occupied Tuesday when boss was out. Got home in one hour ten.

Decided to leave home at 7.30 and see what time that got me in. Arrived 10.00. Hmmm. Did assignment and struggled with writing first assignment due to uncontrollable urge to write comedy which was fuelled by Very Old computers unwillingness to wake up and do anything. IT boy assures me that Old machine is almost ready and that its much better. Got home in one hour forty five.

Weds was one hour thirty in, and two hours home due to M25 standstill. Arrived to find Old machine installed. Excellent. Much more spry than Very Old machine. Lots of quirks and foibles but am able to type more than three words a minute on it. Serioused up Tuesdays assignment and started sub-editing other peoples stuff. And playing with pictures. Am sure that at some point I will learn how to make a picture of a loo seat look interesting.

Am learning about all sorts of things that I am deciding that I want in my house. Whilst sitting in the outside lane of the M25 going nowhere, compiled potential shopping list of things I’d like done to my house. After shopping list had grown to the length of a large redwood, gave up. Baby car’s cabi heating element also gave up.

Thurs was two hours in. Nice colleague volunteered to show mw short way to M23/25 junction on way home. Played with new machine, learned about forklifts, u-bends and health and safety issues. Received second assignment to play with on Friday when boss not in. Followed colleague down to M25 via every tiny little humped road and leafy suburb in south London, only to run into standstill on M25. However, the back roads were so quick, that despite standstill at Maidstone due to very nasty accident and stopping for petrol, I was still home in one hour thirty. Replicating route? Even using sat nav, multimap and ordnance survey? Don’t think so.

On Friday, had dive club dinner, so left at 7.05 with the idea of getting in for nine so that I could leave at five. Arrived 08.15. Hmmm. Meant I could leave at 4.15, but took two hours to get to Chris. *snerk!*

Now I have benchmarks for timing, next few weeks will be spent exploring short cuts.

Dive club meal was excellent at the George Vaults in Rochester,an event Chris organised. Zippy got the Albatross (booby) award (sighs of relief from both Chris and myself who were also contenders!). In classic Christmas party tradition, the sprouts bounced, but there was no food fight this year.

Christmas is approaching way too fast this year, I’m not at all prepared and still awaiting presents arrival. And, oh sh*t, I should probably do something about xmas cards. But at least my tree is up.

Short n sweet

Sebaceous cyst was successfully removed. Whilst cutting me open, Doc explained how he would be attempting to remove it in one piece as that would be much cleaner and vastly reduce any chance of another. His long winded explanation f this was curtailed with the exclamation, ‘Ooh, it popped!’ Hum. Only slightly worrying. Ended up with two stitches, the ends of which poked up giving me two tiny blue Marvin the Martian style antennae.

On Sunday, I volunteered to marshal a training dive at Leybourne. This was a tactical error. I should have been diving. I would have been a lot drier. The lake was extremely choppy, with waves reaching tsunami proportion heights of six inches, the storm was enough that I had to sit on the thermos flask to stop it blowing away, and the rain was, uh. Very wet.

Had stitches removed. Lack of antennae resulted in loss of signals from outer space.

Received email from new job to ask me to please not turn up too much before 10.30 on Monday. Fab. Like this job already!

Friday was my last day divorcing people. Not that I actually did a lot of that on Friday. Mostly I spent time getting rid of all my pictures from my computer, and deleting all the saved games of spider solitaire.

Until I got surprised by my ladies, with a bottle of pink champagne and Belgian chocolates. *beam*

After consuming those, we left work early. I had cunningly planned the company xmas party for Friday also. Isn’t coincidence a wonderful thing? So, went home to tart up and trotted off to The Old Oast. We were loud. And maybe a bit drunk. Or a lot drunk. Charles said some lovely things. And I got a bunch of flowers (white lilies and roses; my favourite!), a blue planet DVD box set and two gorgeous diving coffee table books.

Slept through hangover.

Cleaned house and put up decorations. Slightly concerned by sleepy wasp that had curled up for his winter sleep in the tinsel. Finished off with the blandest Indian Takeaway I have ever had.

Hum. So that’s that. End of an era, start of a new.

Crazy, crazy October

In September I had a very interesting conversation with one of my bestest friends which revolved around me hating what I do for a job. Not necessarily the company I work for, more the whole middle management /admin thing which I fell into because I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Said friend suggested I look at what I enjoyed doing and what about a career change then?

Could have knocked me down with a feather.

Decided to go for it.

Spent week revamping CV to be skills based, and revising for Dive Leader exam.

On the weekend of 6th October, we went out for a dive. Shock, horror, Chris and I didn’t dive together. I dived with Jude and we went in first. Now, going down the shot line off Dover to depth of, in this case, approximately twenty five metres, is always just a teeny bit scary. The water gets darker as you go down, but the shot line keeps you orientated as to which is up and down. So you can imagine that we were just a little perturbed when the shot line gently started going up again. There’s a damn great anchor on the end of the shot line, so no way in hell was the shot line ever supposed to be going up. Still, with big neon question marks over our heads, we kept following, knowing that we would find an end sooner or later.

Sure enough, the wreck we were diving abruptly appeared out of the gloom, and it turned out that the anchor had lodged near the top of the bow, and with slack just arriving as we descended caused the shot line to slacken off. We had a good poke about the wreck, and came back up forty five minutes later.

Friend set me up with an opportunity to submit a CV.

Did that. Got offered an interview.

Took Dive Leader exam and passed it. Just need to get the rest of qualifying dives in. (Something like about twenty relevant dives needed in total.)

Spent a little over a week winding the cats up and scaring Chris while I tore my hair out preparing a portfolio, which I’d never done before.

Went for interview.

Got job.

*faints*

TV season has started once again, which means my zero hours per week of TV increases to two hours per week with my boys on NCIS and Supernatural. *bliss*

On 13 Oct went for a dive with Steve whilst Chris boat-handled. We went to visit the Pomeranian, and with just two divers on board, it was noticeable how beautifully Medsac1 handled and how economic she was on fuel. Steve managed to amuse Dover Port Control by giving them information that needed to be given to the Coastguard. Bless. He was only trying to be helpful. Visibility wasn’t great, maybe a couple of metres at most, but lots and lots of holes to poke around in, and with just the two of us, there were no problems with other divers kicking up silt. Saw a sharky tail disappear under some deck plating, presumable a dog fish. Arf!

On Sunday, celebrated Dad’s birthday by taking him to The Coastguard pub at St Margarets. *burp!* Was a lovely day, with good company.

Spoke to CAT about handing my notice in. I was really worried about that, as although he’s my boss, he’s also a good friend, and I knew he would be a bit upset. But he was a total sweetheart, and we’ve sorted out new recruit and handover, so starting new job second week of December. CAT’s most insistent instruction to me was to organise the xmas party for the first week of December so that we could combine it with my leaving. Awww!

The following weekend I went to a sci-fi convention and ended up working it all the way through. Which was fun. All the guests were complete stars and very much fun, and being front line, we managed to accumulate a few hugs and lots of laughs. Heh. (For those who were there, we won’t mention Suanne and the rugby ball; suffice to say, Elaine is still recovering from the shock to her camera...)

So.

Kimi won! Yay!

Am PO’d that I have to constantly defend my support of Kimi over Lewis. But I’ve been a fan of Kimi since his day one at McLaren and see no reason to change that just because Lewis is British. However, I would have been over the moon to see McLaren take the Constructors title because I’ve supported them for years and don’t like Ferrari all that much. Moo.

Last weekend in October we went to Annelies’ for her birthday and, on the Saturday, we took dog on a safari trail which involved me failing to cross a waterlogged log and falling head first into a vicious ten foot deep muddy swampy bog. Then we left dog behind and headed off to Longleat. Which was fun. It was a lovely weekend, thoroughly enjoyed.

First aid and puglettes

So, the second Saturday in September was taken up with Sports Coach training. Interesting stuff on Sports Nutrition and Sports Injury. A lot of typical sports stuff isn’t applicable to diving as we are not high intensity, but we did get some good snippets. And there was one Sports Coach who got very little out of the day; he taught chess.

On the Sunday we dived the Empress of Fort William, off Samphire Hoe. Embarrassingly, Medsac had lost an anchor there the week before (but not when we were on her!), and we were hoping to retrieve it. So, we threw our spare anchor (not the backup anchor, that’s a smaller one) over to hold the shotline, and mooched on down for the dive. It was just lovely. Nice visibility, light water and lots of nooks and crannies for lobsters and crabs and blennies to hide in. Chris and I came back up with some good pictures. The spare anchor was safely sent back up to the surface. Andy and Jude spotted the AWOL anchor and sent that safely up to the surface. Steve and Dave discovered a CQR anchor and towed that up to the surface too!

The following weekend we went to Weymouth. Leaving after lunch, we had a good trip down with just one sticky patch outside Winchester, arriving around five. This time we stayed at the Beach House at Portland. Although the standard of hotel was the same as the last place we stayed, we preferred this one. A bit more roomy and the landlord was a bit of a character.

The weather was beautiful for us the entire weekend, and the wrecks were stunning. Using the dive boat Tango, we dove the Elenor R, the BlackHawk bow, and the Binnendijk (or something...) and a drift dive that scooted us along the seabed quite quickly. Lots of conversations on that dive went along the lines of ‘Ooh, look at-! Too late.’

The traffic was waiting for us, and we managed all the way from Weymouth Marina to the bottom of the M3 without ever getting the opportunity to move out of second gear. We snuggled up with a Humvee called Oz, and a car with twin girls in the back, pulling a trailer with t win dinghies marked up with Annie and Katie. Getting very tired, we left our new friends to queue up for the M3 whilst we decided to nip along the A3(M) instead, and that turned out to be a wise move. We stopped at a Little Chef for dinner, hit one set of roadworks, and arrived at the M25 in time to meet up with Oz, Annie and Katie. Bizarre or what.

Last weekend was a girly weekend, which was excellent. I decided on a career change. *furtive look* I’ll let you know how that goes after I’ve tested the waters...

Tuesday was another of those lunchless days where I left work a little early to charge up to Chatham and attend another Sports Coaching course. First Aid this time. I was quite pleased to find myself proficient in Rescue Breaths and Compressions thanks to the drills in the diver training courses. But, uh, if you cut yourself, you might want to find someone else to put a bandage on, unless you have a thing for being bandaged to the chair, or your arm bandaged to your leg.

Wednesday we went to Leybourne to dive. I would have dived too, except I charged up there straight from work and discovered that once again I’d forgotten a key piece of equipment. This time, my dry suit. D’oh!

Friday was an exciting day. Somewhere in France, a couple of weeks ago, a button was pushed and a Puglette with Chris’ name on was born. The order for Puglette specified ‘Peugeot 407 SW Sport 2ltr HDi in Aluminium Silver with JBL sound system’. The last two weeks has been a bit traumatic for Chris, as Puglette managed to wander off shortly after she was born and no one could find her to bring her to England. Eventually she was found, scared but excited in a transport hub somewhere near Coventry awaiting delivery to Chris. After a sleepless night, Chris was ecstatic at around 10.32 and 15 seconds to see her pull up at his place. Love at first sight? Oh yeah. Exactly as specified.

We went out to dinner at the Woolpack Friday night, especially so I could enjoy the brand new passenger side of the car. Saturday, I inspected the driver’s side and drove her all day, down to Folkestone and back via the scenic route. I think I like her. Chris isn’t sure about a name for her yet, but it might be Suki. Chris is very happy with the sound system. Personally I was non-committal. It played music and that was about as much as I appreciated it, as I’m just not that aural. Until Meatloaf came on. One of his big powerful orchestral numbers. Excellent sound system.

We had Mel around to dinner last night and Chris cooked steak. The vampire in me was very happy, and Mel was on form so we had a good evening.

Seals (not the Navy type)

The week was spent hamster sitting. Smudge is a very pretty hamster who loves to spend all day in bed, rising at 3am to rummage noisily around, and presents herself for hand feeding in her bedroom, or salon. Perky, on the other hand, is a very fat hamster with beautiful chocolate fur, and who can waddle exceedingly fast through his tubes to the feeding bowl, where he expects a brief petting before going to stuff his cheek pouches.

Saturday, we went to Chris’ mum and dad. Traffic was slow, but moving, which was... okay. We had a lovely afternoon, with good food and good company. And a perfect journey back.

Sunday we went to see mum and dad, and were treated to a Corizo sausage based dinner which was very nice and along with good company, a lovely day was had.

Monday was a very, very long day. I had to leave work early, so I worked through lunch and left at four thirty. After a pit stop at home, feeding the kits etc, I went up to Chatham, and looked for a place to park outside the Rebound centre. None was immediately forthcoming, however, sitting in my car, I was accosted by very mature gentleman who spoke to me as if he knew me, along with my husband Mick and three children, one of whom was named Molly that I was obviously picking up. I just grinned inanely until he went to move his Merc for me. Oh-kaaay.

So, on that note I went in to attend a course of Child Protection and Safeguarding which was very interesting.

We overran past nine, and I dived (no pun intended!) down to the RAFA Club for a meeting with the current Treasurer. I informally accepted taking over the Treasurer position, although I have to be formally voted in at the AGM in November, so that could all go horribly wrong.

Eventually, I pootled on home, and crashed into bed. Sometimes one wonders if one has bit off more than one can chew.

Thursday was fun. It’s very rare that I get a call from BDMLR, as I’m too far from the coast to be top of the call list, but being central, I was a good call for a seal relay. A common seal pup had been rescued at Herne Bay, underweight, alone and struggling to swim, and needed to be transported to the RSPCA at Fairlight outside Hastings.

One of the rescuers was able to bring her as far as Ashford, so we met in the car park at McDonalds (I knew that place had to be good for something!). Unfortunately, they’d managed to borrow a cage that was built for a full grown St Bernards, and the guy brought it down in the back of a pickup, and the cage has no way in hell ever going to fit in the back of my little coupe. So, we convoyed back to my house and transferred the seal to my cat cage, which is in fact a dog cage big enough for three cats.

The seal herself was just gorgeous. She was very tired, but very alert and very well behaved, so long as you didn’t go near her front flippers in which case she snapped. I wish I’d taken a picture, but I was kinda in ‘Rescue’ mode, so at the time, I was only thinking in terms of keeping her wet, cool, aired and comfortable. A passerby had a good look and asked us if the seal was ours, and we both myself and the rescue guy must have looked like stunned goldfish. Er, no. We’re just in the process of rescuing her, ma’am. Oh, said the passerby and carried on her way.

Having got her in the cat cage along with plenty of saturated towels, and transferred her to my car, the guy returned to Herne Bay, while me, my car, Ghostie, and the seal went to Fairlight. We tippy-toed ever so gently. It was a forty five minute drive and we stopped twice en route to check that the seal was staying wet and cool. She snorted when I put the air con on, and snuffled when I decided to open the windows instead, so I guess she preferred the open windows. She dozed whilst I was driving, but when we stopped she blinked sleepily at me and woke up, looking around and nosing the water I sprayed over her.

We arrived at Mallydams RSPCA centre, and Richard who was running the place, helped me get her out of my car and into the centre, and I helped him weigh her and decant her into one of the cubicles. He let me observe during triage, and it seems that she’s about four weeks old, and two thirds the weight she should be. She shouldn’t yet be weaned from mum but with the weight loss had probably been abandoned three or four days. She had bitten front flippers, probably by another seal, one of which was horribly swollen.

They gave her a heavy shot of antibiotics and some painkillers to tide her over until the vet arrived. I had to leave just before they medicated her, but they were optimistic, so long as there was no secondary infection or lugworm. Assuming she does make it, because of her age it’ll be a long time before she’s able to be released back into the wild, but one can hope.

Post Scapa missive

Okay, so for those who don’t know, I’ve had some interesting issues over my BAA shares. Computershare have had a backlog, which has meant that whenever I’ve sent something, I’ve received an acknowledgement by return and an actual reply up to three months later. The crux of the matter is that my last registered address was Hextable Close, and they needed proof that I was at *that* address before moving to Beazley Court. Proof could be a utility bill. Any utility bill at all.

Except that I moved from Hextable over six years ago, and destroyed the utility bills from that address well over a year ago. Over much routing around and finding loads of stuff with Hextable on it, there was a distinct lack of anything that I thought might be acceptable. Nice man at Computershare suggested bank statements and all sorts, but I tend to destroy thing at five years, although I suppose six years is the legal requirement.

However, in my routing around, I discovered that I had P60s! From Magna/Intier covering the period where I moved. They weren’t on the approved list of documentation, but I sent them off with a very polite letter explaining that it was all a number of years ago, and would they please consider my P60s to be adequate. I awaited my acknowledgement by return. It never came.

Seven days later, I received my P60s in a blank envelope with no explanation. Upon telephoning, I was advised that it was being processed and could take a few weeks. Sigh.

And then, out of the blue and in amongst the large pile of post awaiting my attention after Scapa, there was a very nice letter waiting for me. A very, very nice letter confirming transfer to this address. Thanks for the heads up, Dad *hugs*.

Also amongst my post was a letter from the TV Licensing people telling me that they had information that I had a TV recording device and no licence for a TV. Just call me gobsmacked. Rang them to inform that I’d been paying by Direct Debit since time began, and who the hell gave my vendor permission to tell them anyway? And was answered by an answering machine which I worked my way through. I think the problem has something to do with them spelling my surname with four ‘L’s, three ‘C’s and no vowels.

The Monday after we returned, I took an Ocean Diver lecture in the evening, in which I managed to scare any budding wreck divers. On the Tuesday I took Try-Snorkellers (three seven year old and one forty-two year old), and failed to drown them. Actually, they were kind of fun. Actually listened and do what they were told.

Last weekend we went to Kent Divers for air fills and came back to mine. The kits had been having the hump because I’d abandoned them for a whole week. They still had the hump and turned their backs.

Sunday we had a dive. We stayed in-shore, mostly because we had a newly qualified Sports Diver who was very nervous and wanted to keep to reasonably shallow depths, so we chose a wreck we hadn’t done before off Samphire Hoe, the Helene (which might be the Helene aka the Orangeman or the Halcyon).

Nervous Sports Diver along with two buddies went down and had a great dive whilst Chris and I looked after the RIB. They came back up and boarded the RIB, Chris and I kitted up, rolled overboard and went down the shot. Visibility was a metre at best. Less at point of anchor in the wreck. Being the last pair in (Chris volunteering this), we had to free the anchor and send it to the surface. The anchor was caught in fishing nets wrapped around the underside of the bow of the wreck. So, I freed the anchor while Chris got the lifting bag ready, but whilst I was pulling the anchor free, I noticed that I personally had some unexpected resistance. I was caught in the fishing net.

Now, one of two things happen; either paaaniiiic, which is what happened to that poor chap on the Dresden, or training kicks in.

I grabbed hold of Chris, on the basis that if I wasn’t going anywhere, neither was he. He was very puzzled as this was not normal procedure for me, but went with it, sending the anchor up and stowing his kit. Once he was sorted, he asked me if I was OK, and I indicated that I had a problem. Given the visibility, he and his torch had to come very close up and personal, but found that a couple of loops had caught around my gauge. Now you have to understand that there were plenty of backups in place. We both had blobs to send up and mark our places, we both had knives in easy reach to cut the netting and at twenty metres I had enough Nitrox (oxygen enriched air) to last the best part of two hours which is more than enough time to get Coastguard and commercial divers on site and down.

In any case, Chris unlooped the net and I was free. This all took place in the space of about four minutes. The only thing I found creepy and somewhat disconcerting was the bow of the wreck soaring over the top of us; on any other day I would have found it impressive, but on this day it was intimidating. The entire incident was enough to remind us both never ever to get complacent. Scuba is one of the safest sports in the world; but, like driving, only if you’re sensible, aware and in control, especially if there’s a difficulty, otherwise it can be unforgiving.

We went on to mooch around for another twenty minutes, finding lots of holes, however wildlife was minimal. There was a lot of silt which probably stunted any growth, and eventually I got bored and decided to call an end. We launched a DSMB (blob) and came up. This is not wreck I would care dive again unless Samphire suffered from a day of excellent viz, in which case I’d love to dive her again.

Monday, we had a day of leisure. It was lovely just to stop for a while. We mooched over to the South Foreland Lighthouse, and I played with my cameras macro settings.

Tuesday evening, we did a Try-Scuba evening in the Hundred of Hoo pool. That was fun. Especially as we had a film crew making an ad for the Hoo leisure centre. The part where they were filming us might have worked better if they’d had an underwater camera *snerk!*.

Wednesday, I had an interview with Medway Sports Council, which went well, and a long way towards getting me on the approved Sports Coach Register; I need to do a couple of courses in Spetember to finalise. Kits decided that I’d been punished enough and all demanded cuddles all at the same time. Fish were very unhappy.

Bill unfortunately passed away whilst I was at Scapa, cause unknown. But today, all the fish were at the surface, including the baby plecs who were all very neatly arranged in a border around the perimeter of the tank. It turned out that the air pump was dying, letting out very few bubbles. Emergency visit to the pet shop resulted in vicious dual air tube air pumping going on, which sent entire tank into paroxysms of highly oxygenated delight.

This weekend is given over to parental visitations, next weekend is coaching course, then Weymouth weekend, then girly weekend, then October. Its all go!

Return from Scapa Flow

We were very good and got brownie points from Marlene by all being up in time for breakfast, and all being packed and ready to go not long after nine. Which meant that she and Di could clean through without having to yell ‘Oh shit!’ when the next group arrived.


Unfortunately, nice sparkly new rental van didn’t start. Ade turned the ignition and there wasn’t even the merest thought of the possibility of even contemplating turning over by the engine.

Never mind, the man who lived in the house opposite where we were staying leapt to the rescue, with his cat, a rather lovely Blue Burmese, supervised. He ran around the corner and appeared with much banging and smoke in his prehistoric Rover, and attempted to jump start our shiny new van with jump leads that were missing half their crocodile clips. Needless to say, it didn’t work.

However, Marlene twitched the curtain and noticed our predicament. With a yell at the silly man to go away, and another yell that resulted in a lady poking her head out of a window, she went scooting off for her car. The lady who poked her head out the window dashed downstairs and leapt into an Audi, driving in the opposite direction. Mere minutes later, after I had discovered an interesting road named ‘Hell Hole Road’, a big Peugeot 406 2.1 diesel came screaming around the tight and narrow corners in a manner reminiscent of Ayrton Senna; in the opposite direction, the Audi lady screeched to a halt Damon Hill style, mere millimetres from the front of the Pug, and held out a set of sparkly new copper jump leads. Marlene plonked her Pug in front of the van and exposed her extremely large battery, the leads were attached and the van jumped to life.

Yay, the sisterhood!

Steve managed to demonstrate his closet rebel skills, wandering through every ‘No Unauthorised Entry’ sign he could find at Stromness ferry terminal, and testing every camp-bed, folding chair and assorted other items on display at every service station visited.

Ade and Chris drove us back to Kent mostly uneventfully, with little in the way of traffic jams or other inconveniences.

Arrived back at Rochester at 5am Sunday morning and slept for a week.

Thanks, Adrian for organising, and thanks to everyone for contributing to a terrific week.

Chris and I decided to split up for our diving today, just to be different. So I dived Brummer with Joss, whilst he dived it with Ade. It was a very nice and chilled dive. Apart from the divers that jumped in as we were doing our 6 metre deco stop. At least one novice and all were rude. Not one okay sign in thanks for the fact that we had put ourselves as far from the shot line as possible in parallel flag formation so that they had as little manoeuvring as possible.


Ade’s DSMB, the one that kept trying to escape, having failed twice, this time tried for suicide. Chris and Ade popped it up, and it was promptly run over by another dive boat, The Invincible, with the boys hanging on the end of it.

Stopped off at Moaness for lunch. This was a random cafe 300 yards along a windswept and rainy road.

Dived the Tabarka in the afternoon, which sounded a bit scary with its negative buoyancy entry and full penetration as she is completely upside down. But actually it was easy. The entry wasn’t even close to the adrenaline rush of the only other negative entry I’ve done at Elphistone, and the skipper really did put us right on top of the wreck. I was diving with Steve, and we spent the entire time inside the wreck; it was stunning.

Although we lucked out and managed to take a route where we met only one other pair in passing, we ended up in a shoal of divers from The Invincible, and surfaced with them. Thus, we had to sit in the water as Invincible picked up some of her divers before she had to move out and circle round in another pass to pick up the rest. At this point, John L nipped in to retrieve us. Whilst waiting, we managed to acquire an offer of drinks from Invincible, but sadly didn’t have the opportunity.

Once aboard, we cleared our kit in time for arrival at Stromness and put everything in the van. I think we were all sad to leave the John L, and for one would love to dive from her again.

The final meal was at a Chinese, and after Steve (with his nice Scottish accent) valiantly drove the Dive Cellar wreck, um, van to Kirkwall, we spent an amusing half hour walking its tiny streets before locating a pub for pre-dinner drinks. Richard was awarded the wooden spoon for the Wettest Dry Suit Diver, and Dameon won the Most Environmentally Unfriendly cork.

Today we knew there was a good chance we would be blown out, but being the intrepid explorers we are, most of us went down to the boat anyway. Skipper James was happy to go out and have a look, suggesting that a couple of the more sheltered dives might be okay.


Five chickened... er, I mean opted to find alternative amusements for the day, while the rest of us departed, determined to prove how ‘Ard we all were.

The F2 was an option again; however all the dive boats were headed out there, so we decided to look at the V83.

Before entry, we acquired a crash education in keeping one’s balance in full dive kit whilst being buffeted by a Force 5. We jumped in and went straight down the shot line amid strings of Lion’s Mane tentacles and weed.

The V83 was covered in wildlife, most of which seemed to be battling each other. We saw a large lobster and a small conger arguing over occupation rights to a hole under the boiler, which ended abruptly when they saw us. The conger hid inside behind the lobster who presented arms and that was that.

Pugilistic hermit crabs lived up to their name, whilst a crab stepped on a starfish and got thwapped in return. All in all, it was quite a bad tempered selection of wildlife aboard.

We came back up to find something approaching a Force 8, but Skipper James manoeuvred John L with precision to pick us up. It was in this weather that it really became clear that John L was and is a tug and incredibly stable. A second dive was out, so we came back to Stromness in increasing winds, well into Force 9 by the time we docked.

Feeling righteous, we got pizza, cakes and whiskey hot toddies for lunch; there was no sign of the wimps... er, I mean, those who chose not to dive today until well after the evidence was dispatched.

Only eight of us went out on the boat, the others wanting to get some relaxing and sightseeing time in. Seven dived the first wreck, the Coln II again, and six dived the block ship, Doyle at noon.


Last time, we only did the outside of the hull of the Coln, so this time we decided to go down to 33 metres and look in the wreckage before ascending to the hull for a drift back to the shot line. She was as beautiful as the first time we dived, with plenty of wildlife hidden in the wreckage.

Chris either grew an inch overnight or the boat shrunk, as he couldn’t seem to stop knocking himself out on the ceiling of the rooms onboard. Richard continued to get wet in his drysuit, so Chris lent him his semi-dry, which he wore under his drysuit. With all that extra air trapped, his next dive was just a tad hindered without any extra weights to compensate. He still got wet, but least now he was warm and wet.

Doyle could only be dived at slack with margin for error towards the incoming tide so that if there were problems, persons would be swept into the Flow, and not into the North Sea; and with a little more than half hour slack window, that margin was taken very seriously. We were given a maximum dive time of thirty minutes, and all adhered to this, popping up at 28 minutes.

Very nice man at Stationers provided us a service that is not normally provided and helped us prepare our Wanted posters. The very nice lady in same shop informed us with much rolling of eyes and waving of hands, that being reported to the police was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard of, as all the farmers wandered around everywhere with big machetes as a matter of course.

Adrian cooked a beautifully garlicky SpagBol. Yum. Burp.

Went to pub to finish off the day.

The day dawned bright and clear with Marlene ruling the kitchen with an iron rod and it was good to see the boys scuttling around under her orders. Due to a strained wrist, Richard elected to go to Skara Brae and came back with some terrific photos.


We went down to the John L and headed out to the Brummer. I can’t get over how wonderful the visibility was. There were some beautiful dahlia anemones, each a different colour combination from the last and some crabs buried in the silt trench that ran along part of the hull amongst many other things.

The loo got blocked and with the help of a coffee mug, our resident plumber, Adrian, unblocked it. And promptly returned the mug into the caffeine rotation, but as no one other than Ade knew exactly which mug it was, all were eyed with suspicion.

At lunchtime, Adrian and Steve (with his nice vaguely Scottish accent) found out that they had been reported to the police for attempting to enter the Museum in drysuits with dive knives strapped to their legs. It should be pointed out Lyness is a popular quay for dive boats at lunchtime as it’s next to most of the wrecks and allows smelly divers to stretch their legs without offending anyone. The Museum/Cafe really is the only building for miles around. Yet, Steve and Ade made the Orkneys Most Wanted list. The rest of us decided to assist by creating ‘Wanted’ posters.

We skulked away for the afternoon dive, the F2 and barge again. Most dived the F2, but Chris and I went over to the barge and, undisturbed, the wildlife was just waiting for us. Two wrasse decided we were their new best friends and followed us around. A conger eel came out to play, free swimming. And life simply abounded Red Sea style.

The conger was a challenge to my burgeoning photography skills, with the fish itself happy to pose, but for some reason my camera didn’t want to focus on it. Thus, I spent a long time getting up close and personal with it while failing to get any good pictures, right up until it shot lightning fast right at me. I jumped, camera went flying, and there might have been a girly scream coming out of my reg, but with no one able to hear it but me, I shall deny it. Fortunately my camera was physically attached to me, and I calmed down to see the conger back in its hole looking innocently at me as it munched the fish it had snagged from under my camera.

When we returned to the boat, a DSMB had been found floating in the flow and rescued by the boat. It belonged to Adrian. Again.

Adrian and Steve used a sea urchin to fish a wrasse for dinner. Chris, Joss and I went out to dinner instead; the Orkney steak and Dark Island ale pie was just divine. I wasn’t going to have any pudding, and simply ordered another drink. Until I spotted the original Orkney ice cream with butterscotch sauce in a brandy-snap basket. Oink.

The weather this morning was much better than yesterday, and after Marlene’s breakfast (I made the porridge), we went to the boat and set out for the wreck of the Coln II. Once again, a beautiful dive with stunningly clear water and plenty of the small types of wildlife to be found. The highlight was Nicola attempting to kneel on a scorpion fish that he didn’t see, which sped off in the direction of my camera.


Adrian managed to lose his DSMB. The boat found it floating happily in the middle of the flow and rescued it. Richard’s drysuit seemed to be doing a better job of letting water in, than keeping it out.

I decided to duck out of the second dive specifically to take photos of divers going in and out of the water.

At lunchtime, we moored up at Lyness again, but this time went to the museum. On the way there, Chris, Steve (with a vaguely Yorkshire tone to his accent), Dameon and I met up with a disgruntled Adrian stomping away; the Museum Curator had chucked him out for going inside in his dry suit. Chris and Steve pouted and commiserated with Adrian, they too in their drysuits, whilst Dameon and I shot inside and had a good look around. We encountered Joss and Richard and Nicola already there. Nicola got told off very quickly for climbing an unauthorised ladder in order to take pictures. Whilst it’s positioning was such that it was clear that the ladder was not to be climbed, there was nothing to actually say it couldn’t. But since the curator also ran the only cafe for miles, he won.

The wind picked up for the afternoon, the waves getting choppy and only six dived the Karlsruhe. Which was a little disappointing as I’d wanted to get pics of everyone, but what the hey, better to dive safe. The six who dived came back up to tell the rest of us how absolutely brilliant it was.

We decided to head straight back to the house, but this time the Royal Hotel bar distracted us for a pit stop.

We had access to a minibus owned by the dive centre, and some of us Sdecided to take it into Kirkwall for food in the evening. This minibus was a top of the range brand spanking new effort at a mere twenty years old, and completely fully functioning. Apart from the speedo not working. And the doors not closing. And bits of the body work falling off. And the oil burning. And the tyres weren’t fully flat yet. And there was the ominous squeak from somewhere under the flat spare tyre. And who needs a fuel gauge anyway? But the lights worked well, and the brakes worked in a limited fashion.

In Kirkwall, we followed diversion signs that didn’t lead anywhere, yet managed to give us a highly educational tour of the place, and challenged Steve’s abilities to squeak the minibus around very tight corners without taking out any walls. We headed for the local Indian Restaurant where much laughter was had. Mostly at the expense of those who weren’t there, naturally.

Nicola and Daniella opted to go to the Italian church instead. Which closed about thirty seconds before they arrived. Dameon didn’t like Indian and decided on a fish supper instead back at the house. Dameon’s unfortunate flatulence was still continuing and seemed to be contagious, with, according to unnamed sources, Chris, Richard, Joss and Adrian joining him in a most unholy chorus. Dameon also suffered from unfounded rumours concocted over curry and beer.

We survived the trip back, thanks to Steve’s driving, and parked the bus more or less in a parking box. We took an executive decision that two wheels out of four in the box were sufficient.

We woke up this morning to find it pissing down. Marlene cooked us a full breakfast with porridge on the side which was lovely. After helping Marlene clear away, we ambled the entire four hundred yards through the rain down to the boat, the John L, under skipper James and crewman Andrew (not Andy).


Upon arrival, we were informed that the first dive was a nice easy one on the Dresden. This came with the polite request that we keep an eye out for some kit that belonged to the deceased diver.

The weather did not improve as we went out into Scapa Flow, and we glared a lot at both sea and sky. Nevertheless, we jumped in and descended the shot line to the Dresden. And just... wow. The visibility was just stunning. So I whipped camera out and took a lot of pictures that really aren’t interesting to anyone else but me. We mooched along the hull, turned around mooched along the hull the other way before returning to the surface.

Where it was flipping cold.

Fortunately, Adrian, who hadn’t dived, had the kettle on for much welcomed cuppa teas and Joss was everyone’s best friend as he’d brought vast quantities of Twixes.

We moored up at an isolated museum/cafe randomly located on an island next to some dry fish pens. Lyness pier apparently. Unfortunately it did not allow customers in wet or drysuits, and as it was still pissing down, few people decided to get out of their nice warm and slightly soggy suits.

Second dive of the day we had to queue up for, as there were three other boats already on the wreck. This was the F-2 and the YC51 barge. When we eventually got in the water and down, we found that stunning wildlife abounded, and I was slowly starting to get the hang of my camera. We met Steve and Phil coming the other way under the bow of the barge, and later encountered Steff hanging on the bottom of her DSMB while Jon rummaged in the wreckage for his lost glove.

When the boat moored in the harbour, some of us were a little dismayed at the very long and very vertical and very seaweed covered iron ladder we had to climb to get off. But we all made it up without incident. The showers were calling, but as we passed the pub that called louder, so a pit stop was spontaneously had.

The evening meal was enjoyed at the Ferry Inn, although stock seemed somewhat limited. No orange juice, no pink wine, no steak and ale pie, no mackerel, no... well quite a lot of other things. But what there was, was lovely.

Dameon, we discovered, should not have been allowed beans at Carlisle. He was very good from there to Scrabster, but having suffered for so long, the moment the bus stopped long enough for us to decant at Scrabster, he just had to let go. And go, and go.


Having arrived at 3.30am, with the ferry leaving at 8.45am, we went for a short walk around the dock in order to stretch knees and de-numb bums. Or perhaps that latter part was just me.

Four stayed outside and admired the sunrise whilst five of us tried to catch forty winks inside the bus, with Dameon still loudly suffering.

At around five thirty we woke/gave up pretending to sleep, and began to amuse ourselves any way we could. From the car park where we were, we observed a car arrive and put itself first in the non-existent queue for the ferry, taking bets on how long it would take them to realise they weren’t going anywhere and turn their engine off.

A seagull came and joined the queue, second in line and waiting very patiently. Eventually, the seagull revealed its true colours; it was an undercover Customs officer, which became all too clear as it strutted up to car that was at front of queue and thoroughly inspected it, being sure to check for unauthorised sausages under the wheel arches, up the exhaust pipe and what seemed to be inside the bumper. It failed to find anything, but must have been suspicious as it ordered three of its mates to stand guard on a nearby building, keeping eagle eyed and paranoia inducing watch.

Photos of me in compromising positions had allegedly been taken. As the only girlie in the cast at this point, I was suspecting a conspiracy...

We observed an unmarked lorry entering the port, backing up to another lorry and decanting *stuff*. We speculated on what that stuff might be, but concluded that, whatever it was, the sniper seagulls had it well in hand.

Then it was time for the Chris and Joss Gay Blokes Show. With both Chris and Joss being of the over six foot two and six foot seven well built varieties, this was a show that was somewhat larger than life in a very small bus, with both being worryingly believable. Although Chris managed the body language incredibly well too. Which scared the natives.

Check-in finally open, Chris drove us in and decided to start the day with a joke, politely asking the check in man where the Seafrance ferry was. From the daggers the check-in man glared, he had clearly been born without any sense of humour whatsoever. Oops.

We parked up in our assigned lane and some of us wandered off to find breakfast. Very nice lady at the Fisherman’s Mission whipped up four fried breakfasts and five large mugs of tea faster than the speed of light and for not very much money. She was a diver and recognised us for what we were without us saying a word, rambling on at length in a surprisingly mellow accent about the local diving. She gave us the bad news that there had been some patches of bad visibility and upon enquiring about her definition of bad visibility, we were rather pleased to find that she was referring to just fifteen feet or so. Fifteen feet?! We should be so lucky on a good day in the Channel!

The ferry, MV Hamnavoe was just like a Dover Calais Ro-Ro. However, with porpoises and seals playing in the sea around the ship, the Old Man of Hoy, and a good deal less diesel in the water, it was a much nicer crossing.

I may have been a little optimistic on weather in packing though. It’s cold up here!

Upon arrival, we met one of the managers, Dougie. And we met our cook/cleaners, Marlene and ah, thingy (Di) who is a very flamboyant red head. Our introduction to Marlene began with her opening the front door and crying out ‘Oh, shit!’

Chris and Joss brought out the Gay Blokes Show and managed to scare them too. We retired to the pub, had some lunch and switched off for a couple of hours snoozle. Jon (not to be confused with Little John) and Steff (another girlie, Yay!) arrived to join the cast list, having taken a week to do the same journey we’d just done, but B&B-ing and diving their way up the country. Jealous, much?

Later, some of us headed out for fish and chips, (from chippie van run by Marlene) which involved a half hour queue in light summer rain, and calling out to fellow group members headed in opposite direction only to have them ignore us whilst those all around stared at us like we’d escaped from the local asylum. Marlene expressed delight at seeing a woman on Chris’ arm (me), as she’d got a bit worried earlier. She still wasn’t sure about Joss.

Dried off in pub and retired back to house for early night.

At around 10pm, the final two cast members joined us, Nicola (a bloke) and Daniella (not speaking so good with the English), a couple from Italy.

First impressions of Stromness? Very clean, incredibly friendly, virtually no crime and no one seems to know what a locked door is. Oh yeah, and there are no problems with pedestrians belonging on pavements and cars belonging on roads, as the pavements er, *are* the roads. Or is it the other way around?

It was noted in the evening that several lifeboats were in port. It transpired that a diver had died diving the Dresden.

Off to Scapa Flow!

(This blog of Scapa Flow is not meant as a tourist guide, and factual accuracy is not guaranteed, in fact it is often mislaid.)
D-Day! And we lay in bed drinking coffee and contemplating the seventeen hour drive ahead of us with mounting anxiety as the radio news hammered on about all the accidents on the M25.

At 10.30, nine of us plus dive kit, clothes and kitchen sink all crammed into a minibus and set off on our grand adventure. Cast members at this point were as follows; Adrian (or Ade), Chris, me (Lynn), Phil W (henceforth known as Phil), Little John (the only non-diver and Steve’s dad), Steve (with his nice mid-English accent), Dameon, Richard and Phil J (henceforth known as Joss so as not to get confused with Phil).

Traffic wasn’t even considerate enough to let us get onto the M25 unhindered. The instant we hit the M2 we were nose to tail in our first traffic jam; getting onto the M25. Then there was the M25 itself and pretty much every motorway right up until we reached the Penrith/Carlisle sort of area.

The one nice thing about service stations is that they are all exactly the same. Which means if you see this really, really snugly travel pillow thing in one, if you still want it three hours down the road at the next, you can get it.

The second half of the journey was smooth sailing and the drivers, Adrian and Chris, both did incredibly well throughout, especially through the twisty turny roads and roundabouts of the wilds of northern Scotland, to our interim destination of Scrabster. It was a smooth ride, aside from one small incident involving mass suicidal rabbits, and Adrian being headlined as the Bunny Murderer (one bunny, both front and rear tyres). Oh yeah. And the roundabout that pounced out of nowhere and required a bit of gas before the brakes were located.

Various boobs

A short missive to bring us up to date before we set off on our expedition to the wilds of Scapa Flow. We should be setting out from Rochester Friday morning and driving the full lengths of both England and Scotland to catch the ferry from the very north east over to the Orkney Islands. We will be on proper explorer rations (mint humbugs and Pringles), and hacking our way through the jungles of the M1.

Last Monday week, discovered the butterscotch loveliness that is Starbuck’s Crème Caramel (with cream) and decided that this was a treat to be had very occasionally. Ended up doing nowt at club due to baby diver having a conflicting schedule. Instead gossiped over a pint at the bar and got home at a decent time. Newsletter went out, tentative possible proposal for me to join the committee in November maybe, details for Scapa discussed, impromptu dive at the lakes planned for Saturday, and conducted impromptu lecture on burning discs and the difference between CD-R’s and CD-RW’s

Tuesday decided that a crème caramel was deserved as it was bound to be a bad day, being a Tuesday and all.

Wednesday held Diana’s hand as she wanted to go get her boob measurements checked at M&S. She’s always worn what her mum told her she was when she was a teenager, and now that she’s in her forties with a creeping suspicion that she’s not what she was when she was younger - especially after bearing two children, she decided it was time to check. But wasn’t brave enough. So I took her and went in first. And found to my total and utter dismay that my happiness at 34D with the odd delusion of 34C was, well. Half wrong. 34 is correct, no doubt. But I wasn’t expecting the DD proclamation.

Having now got appropriate lingerie, things are admittedly more comfortable, and I can’t believe I have something that a lot of women pay vast fortune’s to have. However, I now feel justified in being cranky 21 days out of 28. Chris, by the way, is extremely happy and felt the need to share this news with all of his male colleagues, all of whom I’m told were extremely jealous.
Diana as it turns out is in fact a C cup where she had always thought she was a B. She is very happy and plans to continue swimming every day with the goal of achieving a D cup. With the amount of running she does too, she clearly doesn’t believe me when I say that anything over a C cup will seriously curtail her running. Celebrated revelations with a Crème Caramel.

Thursday Mr PacificBlue Client came in with his arm in a sling and announced that he had been assaulted. He was grinning manically as he told us this. He gleefully informed as that he’d been cycling with a group of others through the woods and spotted a narrow gap through the trees where the others were taking a big gap. The gap was not too narrow, he insisted, his judgement was perfect and his cycling prowess beyond reproach, however he admitted to failing to consider the baby oak that leapt out and assaulted him as he was passing through said narrow gap. He tried to arrest the baby oak, but as the handcuffs wouldn’t fit, he went to the pub instead. Had a mad dash down to Dover to get stuff sorted for when I go on holiday, and by the time I got back to Ashford, was so dehydrated that I decided to have a Crème Caramel.

Friday got very mildly pissed at lunchtime. Slight sticky point when I returned after lunch to receive a call from Mr Pernickety Client who wanted to go over all our processes and procedures in minute detail as they related to his specific case. I know at one point I invited him to come in and read our four inch Quality Manual. After two hours, two mugs of caffeine and reassuring noises from Julia, Mr Client remarked that I had been incredibly helpful thank you and goodbye. Joy. Thoroughly deserved the Crème Caramel I went out for afterwards.

Chris cooked me pork roast dinner. Yum! :O)

Saturday went to the lakes. Had very pleasant dive testing out all backup kit to ensure it was all still functional in low visibility due to kicked up silt by trainee divers. Had air cylinder filled for Sunday’s dive.

Sunday morning was beautiful. Checked kit, and found airfill was 140 bar. 100 bar less than it should have been. In other words, I had just over half a cylinder’s worth of air; not nearly enough to do a thirty metre dive; not unless I change my name to Tanya Streeter, anyway. Many phone calls, beggings and pleading, and managed to source another *full* cylinder.

Went out to the White Rose off St Margaret’s bay. Flat water, visibility looked good, and slack was on it’s way. With slack almost there, we kitted up. And my finstrap broke. And no one had a spare instrap. So I had to stay in the boat and sulk. Moo.

On Monday, popped dive kit in boot of car and drove to dive club in Chatham as per usual. Once there, swapped stuff around various car boots. Locked keys in boot. Screamed. Sent Chris down to Ashford to get spare keys.

Got club dive kit and took very nervous student in. She did very well, and her confidence increased. Felt much better about taking her this time. Still can’t get past mask clearing though. Chris was at bar when returned to club, having opened car up and found keys trapped in car. Big hugs.

Thursday packed for holiday. Chris picked me up to stay at Rochester overnight. Halfway up M20 realised I’d forgotten dive computer. Turned around and went back to get it. Eventually got to Rochester. Chris burned dinner. Then rescued it. Big hugs.

So. Tomorrow we embark on our grand adventure.

Wish us luck.

Scapa and Harry

After last time’s rant, I’m sure people will be very pleased to know that I have little to say for myself this time.

Mostly, we’re preparing for The Expedition to Scapa Flow due to start at Base Camp Rochester on 10 August. One could say that I’m slightly nervous, as I’m the only girly travelling via our Sherpa type bus from Rochester up to the Orkneys; I haven’t quite worked out how to tell the boys that, being biologically different from them, when I need the bathroom, we are going to have to actually stop somewhere. There will be a couple of other girlies joining us at Stromness, fortunately.

Monday 16 July saw the final Duke of Edinburgh class, so we had fun playing with toys in the lecture, and playing games in the pool. We think the girls enjoyed it all; we certainly did.

Our final Scapa meeting was at the end of the week, and we munched choccy biccies and drank beer for the evening as a practice for Expedition food rations.

Saturday dive failed to happen yet again, so Sunday we jumped in the lake so practice could be had carrying a pony (a small cylinder as a back up). Much fun was had doing acrobatics for buoyancy practice, and trying to squeeze through very small gaps with all this extra kit on.

Also, with old camera on its last legs, we acquired new camera with marine housing. Jumped in lake on Wednesday with the intention of trying it out. Played with both new and old cameras and had a lot of fun. Especially as the Pike came to see what we were doing and posed for a couple of shots (see attached).

Had lunch with Mel on Saturday, and had mutual congratulatory session on acquiring our Harry otter books without any queuing.

You have to understand that my postman is a lovely guy, but a lazy sod. He doesn’t bother with trying to deliver anything which might not fit through a standard letterbox, instead electing to write out all his little red cards in advance and delivering those instead. Which means he doesn’t have to carry stuff around, and we don’t have to wait the usual four hours or so for him to take the undeliverable stuff back to the sorting office.

So, knowing this, and having ordered my Harry Potter book from Amazon, I carefully planned the Saturday so that I’d get my red card and get to the post office with minimal queuing and with contingencies for diving or not, etc, etc. So imagine my very pleasant surprise when postie rang my doorbell at 8am precisely and handed me my Harry book with a big grin.

And, yes I’d finished reading it within 24 hours.

And that’s pretty much all I have to say for myself.

Traffic rant!

Public Service Announcement: We have survived not only the first of July aka the day the one-way system went two-way, but also the Tour De France, so bring it on, dudes, we can take it!

The first of July was pretty much uneventful, with no one venturing anywhere near Ashford town centre and all the smokers huddling in each others back gardens attempting to recover from the massive hangovers and lung ash from the Saturday night smoking parties.

The second of July was pandemonium. Having to take dive kit straight from work to go to Chatham, I took car in to work. If I wasn’t so worried about the dive lecture I was due to give, I might have engaged my brain cell, but well, I didn’t. Which is how come it took me forty five minutes to make a drive that takes me twenty minutes to walk. However, I was awake enough to note all the lemmings who were in the left hand lane, because they were so used to going clockwise, and those lemmings with last minute inspirations leaping from the left lane to the right lane at the last possible moment.

When I left work, I immediately came out of the car park, and went anti-clockwise around the shiny new two way system, and zipped on my way, marvelling at how improved the whole thing was, and laughing at the nose to tail gridlock in going clockwise. Two weeks later, it’s still generally quicker to go anti-clockwise.

On the impossibly stupid side, someone has clearly pointed out that Ashford is the home of roundabouts, a comment which I can only think must have given the Head of Roundabouts a, er, well, a big head, and/or upset the Head of Traffic Lights. Because we now have a set of traffic lights a minimum of twenty yards apart all the way round.

Except outside Lidle’s where, to the best of my counting ability, there seems to be four independent sets of lights four car lengths apart. Now, all of this could be consider an efficient thing, especially if, like me, you anticipate a masterpiece of light sequencing that would mean traffic go, traffic stop, pedestrians go, pedestrians stop etc. Or, sequenced such that if one goes at a steady 20mph (I typed 200mph first time which seems much more fun), one can pass through most sets unhindered. Or something.

But no. The Head of Traffic Lights keeps a control board of buttons in his office to manually operate each set, except he’s got too distracted by the Head of Road Art and left the control board in the bottom of a cage of hyperactive rats. Or, at least that’s what it seems like when you’re sixteenth in a queue of cars, and after waiting six minutes on red, the traffic lights turn green for precisely twelve seconds before going red again.

From a pedestrian point of view, if one wants to cross the road, one needs carefully plan one’s way, and ideally go across in groups of four. Two buddy pairs performing a pincer movement in a stealthy manner may just result in one group member getting across successfully. This is counted as a win. Because all this waiting and inconvenience for cars, is not a penalty for drivers in favour of pedestrians; by the time pedestrians have waited for the interesting sequencing to come around to the pedestrian green lights most will have died of old age. Now there’s an argument for six point two children before reaching twenty one

The sequencing does seem to be improving, mostly due to the little rat like men standing by each set of traffic lights and fiddling with them. The lemmings are slowly learning the meaning of ‘anti-clockwise’, drivers are becoming adept at not only the usual driving skills, but also spotting sneak road crossings by frustrated pedestrians, traffic lights popping up out of nowhere, and inspired lemmings performing random lane changes.

Hum. So. Just as we’re all trying to get a handle on this, the second of July also brought the influx of letters telling the entire population of Ashford that if they had no off road parking, or wanted to leave Ashford on Sunday 8th July, then they had to leave their cars on the outskirts of Ashford from Saturday evening to Sunday morning. Any other year, and I think everyone would have been happy to do this for something as prestigious as the Tour De France. Not this year.

No one in their right mind would leave their vehicle on the outskirts of town on a Saturday night unless they were looking to make an insurance claim, but okay, with the volume of cars, perhaps that wouldn’t be a problem. Those without cars who want to get out of town can only get out if they want to go by train, because the buses can’t run. Businesses who would have been open on the Sunday, and might have done well selling food to spectators etc., can’t. Because not even business vehicles are allowed, which means no refrigerated vans delivering health and safety approved food for cooking/consumption.

In the end, I understand that things weren’t quite that rigid in practice, but it’s understandable that for the entire week between going two way and the Tour de France arriving, the entire event was viewed as yet another disorganised upheaval. And the event itself was much enjoyed by those that decided to go and spectate; it was certainly a good day for it.

I'm not even going to get started on Junction 10.

The good news is that art installation consisting of road signs has been moved away from the box junction where the art was easily confused with actual road signs. Still no word on what the birds painted on the tarmac are about.

We went diving instead. It was a very good dive.

The Duke of Edinburgh lecture and pool lesson went well. And this last week I’ve been put in charge of the incredibly nervous Ocean Diver student.

Hum. Rant Over.

Implosions ahoy!

The eighth of June saw the beginnings of my birthday starting off with a lovely dinner at mum and dads. Birthday pressie involved a treasure trove of jewellery. *beam*

The day after we spent in battle with the new shed. After much swearing, a couple of strategic withdrawals to Wickes, and a prolonged negotiation with a grand matriarch garden spider, the shed was erected, and now looks very pretty.

Chris took me to Utopia for dinner, and presented me with a nifty MP4 player. Which talks very nicely with my lappy and my car. *happy dance*

On Sunday, I was beginning to suspect that the fates were not happy about me diving this year. We packed Leah and drove down to Dover Marina in order to take Medsac around to St Margarets Bay. It was a beautiful morning when we left Ashford. Dover, however, was enshrouded in pea soup.

Still, ever optimistic, we got Medsac set up, and after a panic filled moment that has earned Chris the nickname ‘Killswitch’, we found ourselves lurking in the car park along with several other divers and fishermen also awaiting movement by the pea soup. Eventually, it started clearing, and with a big cheer, we started kitting ourselves up and loading Medsac with the dive kit. And I realised that I’d left my BCD behind. This being a large piece of kit and kind of akin to forgetting the cylinder, or the regs. Y’know, key stuff. No time to drive back and get it, so left my stuff in the car, loaded up kit and took Medsac out.

Having won the coin toss the night before, I took Medsac out, crossing the harbour to go out the Eastern entrance. With an eight knot speed limit, I found it difficult to keep Medsac at eight knots; she wanted to go at either six or eleven. Chris decided I was being too heavy handed and tried to show me how delicate one needed to be, but he couldn’t get it either.

Once through the harbour wall, I found myself checking left and right before hitting the throttle and zipping around to St Margarets.

There were two dives planned, and while the first dive went ahead with Chris taking Medsac out, Buoyancy Ade kindly took me to Dover Marina where we transferred to Leah and whizzed up to Ashford to fetch my BC, back to Dover, transferred all my kit to Ade’s car and back to St Margarets.

Medsac returned with sheepish divers on board. A couple’d had a good dive, although they hadn’t seen anything; the visibility being so bad that even the fish couldn’t see and kept bumping into them. Slack failed to send a memo to advise that it would be arriving early, therefore when Chris and Kev went in second, the tide started running and they aborted. Which meant leaving the shot line on the wreck.

After BBQ-ing on the beach, it was determined that underwater visibility was still non-existent, so after all that, the second dive didn’t happen. Instead we went out to the wreck to look for the shot line. And failed to find it.

Chris took us back to the Marina, while I whinged about failing to dive.

On Monday, I took my very first Ocean Diver pool session. I had a very excellent student who said very nice things.

On the 14th, my birthday started with coffee in bed, and lotsa cards and emails and texts, and ended with me just chilling out with an evening to myself which was lovely. *bliss*.

Friday the work girlies and I went to the pub and got a bit pissed.

That weekend, Jill and Jen came down, and I got loads of goodies! Mostly Supernatural goodies, but also some cool jewellery and games and accessories and things. Totally fab. Reviewed some TV stuff, drank wine and ate cake. Yum.

That Monday I was a bit nervous as I was covering someone else’s dive lecture and it was full of technical stuff like biology, chemistry and physics *gulp!* It went okay, but no better than just okay. However, our Regional Coach was there, hiding. He’d come to the club for something unrelated, heard that I was taking a lecture and decided to sit in. He gave me a great feedback and concrit session afterwards and said nice things too. As our training officer is out of action, the Chairman subsequently asked if I’d design and give a lecture to our D of E Award girls. *gulp!* Got that on Monday, so just a tad nervous! 1!!!

Last weekend we went to Weymouth for a weekend of pure diving. The weather looked a bit blowey, but we were on a hardboat – Tango and we’ve been out in a good deal worse. But for some reason the dive gods did not want me to dive. I started heaving not long after we were out of the harbour, and didn’t stop until sometime Sunday morning. No dives for me. Chris and Kev saw a Tope (shark), and I cannot tell you how jealous I am. Met up with Annelies, Richard and Canada and got more pressies :oD This time goodies for making believe I was on a hot beach somewhere! Walked along Chesil Beach until it started to rain.

We stayed in a beautiful hotel on Portland isle. Very olde worlde and friendly.

Sunday I took one look at the sea and my stomach curled up, so I decided to go out with Oz and investigate Portland. We had a very pleasant day investigating cream teas, perusing the museum and exploring old St Andrew’s church ruins; which are on the side of a cliff and has gravestones inside the church because they ran out of space.

On Monday, we took another pool session, but this time had a different student who wasn’t very good, or very confident; didn’t do so well.

Wednesday brought another opportunity to dive! Okay, so it was at Leybourne Lake, but at this point I’d jump in a bath tub in full kit if I could. With little margin for error time wise, I tippy toed out of work at 17.30, sprinted to my car and, tyres burning rubber, squealed out onto the M20 and zipped up towards Leybourne. Feeling immensely pleased with myself for getting on the motorway by 18.00, with all my kit in the back, you can imagine my horror as I hit the brakes, sliding to a stop where the M20 was at a complete standstill.

Someone really, really, really didn’t want me to dive. One panicked call to Trafficwatch told me that it was just a ten minute delay, and subsequent call to the dive officer confirmed that would be okay. Screeched into the car park, fifteen minutes late, but forgiven. I dived with Alan while he practiced his Navigation. He does the most beautifully circular straight lines. I discovered that putting too much air in one’s dry suit is somewhat similar to what sky diving in reverse must feel like.

Whilst walking home from work on Thursday, I was most bemused to discover a couple of little men painting yellow birdies on the road. The mind boggles. Almost as much as boggling over the installation art that consists of random roadsigns in the middle of a junction.

Tomorrow, 1st July the smoking ban kicks in. Very good, I say. However, some psychotically sadistic politician decided that the very same day, Ashford would convert from one way traffic, to two way traffic. So that means we’ll end up with hundreds of nicotine deprived motorists struggling to interpret a new two way system decorated with yellow flying birds on the tarmac and random No Entry signs that don’t mean anything because actually they’re art. My theory is that it’s all one very sneaky plan to make Ashford implode.

Sheds, seasickness and pyromaniacs

On a nice fair Saturday Chris organised for us to go on a trip to a microbrewery in the Chatham dockyards, for which the parental joined us. The beer drinkers drank copious quantities of beer and the drivers ate copious quantities of samosas. We were looked after marvellously and discovered that brewing beer isn’t nearly as complicated as some hops geeks would have one believe. As Chris likes to tell everyone, he has now proven that he can organise a piss up in a brewery. Afterwards, we went to the Ship & Trades pub for a while before Chris and I accompanied the parental for a stroll around the docks. Which are extremely new looking given that they are a few centuries old.

Having spent a very long times pinching other people’s printers, on Sunday I decided that I might like to acquire my own, but only if I could get one cheaply. Of course, the thought only occurred to me when I spied the PC World shop next door to the DIY store where we’d gone to get me a new shed. Shed placed on order, but it seemed wrong to spend money and walk away with nothing to show for other than a receipt. So went home shiny new printer.

As requested by club Boat Officer, we went to marina to check on Medsac 1 and ended up bailing her out a bit and pumping her up a bit. Dad joined in and had fun chatting with other sailors, helping moor up yachts and spotting mullets (of the fishy kind, not the hairy kind).

On Monday, I was due to do a try dive in the pool, but discovered my old faithful shorts were a bit holey, and not keen to acquire my own nickname quite yet, went shopping at lunchtime. Found perfect pair for £6, with second pair free. However, there was no choice of colours. The black pair that I wanted was fine. But I’m not exactly certain what I’m going to do with the fuchsia pair. Although one of my ladies helpfully pointed out that the fuchsia pair did match my socks.

Try diver was a lifeguard, champion swimmer type, who eventually got the hang of not yo-yoing between surface and bottom of pool, but couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of getting from A to B as slowly as possible. I’m very glad my ocean fins gave me more engine speed to catch him every time he tried to make a break for it. I also discovered that carrying my kit on my back to/from the car, whilst wearing my grey jeans, results in a rather unattractive workman’s bum. Pool lady thought this was hysterical. Should I be worried?

On Tuesday, at just a year old, laptop threw strop and refused to charge up. And for just a few moments, I cursed buying shed and printer.

On Wednesday, screamed and shouted and generally put every anaemic PMT’d cell into accusing Acer of building in obsolescence, and cheap skating on un-warrantied parts etc., etc. And after much discussion, a couple of phone calls, and an inference that actually, I might be persuaded to buy a much better machine if I were given a suitable discount, I walked away with a suitably discounted laptop.

On Thursday had lunch with Liz, a Zimbabwe dog breeder who kept an unpronounceable breed of dog when she lived in Zimbabwe; she now works for the NHS. Boggled at MS Vista and undid all the defaults which made the machine unworkable, and now have beautifully working machine that looks remarkably like an Acer on the outside and a Mac on the inside.

Friday brought the arrival of my shed. Very impressed with Wickes, I can tell you. The delivery was booked for Friday in the knowledge that they had no guarantee of time, and someone had to be in to sign for the thing. Very inconvenient, but checkout boy whispered that if I called first thing, the driver may be able to give me a rough idea of time. So I crossed my fingers and called. After five minutes of listening to muzak, nice lady tells me that the driver is just rearranging his load slightly, and would deliver to me first within the hour.

Twenty minutes later, Wickes lorry pulls up and asks which part of the kerb would be best to unload it on, as they can only deliver to kerb-side. (I knew this, and had space on drive ready.) So I looked all pathetic, and explained that it had to go in my back garden so as near to that direction as possible would be appreciated. Fifteen minutes later, all shed components were hand delivered personally by very nice driver into my back garden. Spent the evening discovering the joy that is I-Tunes.

Bank Holiday weekend, I was due to go to see Annelies. Traffic was never going to be good on a Bank Holiday, but an average of 60 on the M20/26 I considered to be okay. Forty on the M20 was a little frustrating, but we all kept moving and got there eventually.

Matrix signs declared the M3 at a stand still, so laughed as I went around the slip road to the M4 and screeched straight into a gridlock. The M4 was an average of around 25, came off the A3-oh-whatever, and was pleased and surprised to find an open road for many miles, right up until the speed cameras at the bottom of somewhere beginning with B, two roundabouts from Stonehenge. Expected Stonehenge to be nasty, but feel that an average of 2mph was perhaps a little much. With Annelies’ hints and my sat nav, found a way across the plains which was quick, although the ‘Warning: Tank Crossing’ signs were a little off-putting.

Whilst sitting in traffic jam, however, I discovered that my Very Important blue silk CD case with my Very Important car CDs and Supernatural AVIs had gone AWOL. Remembered last time I saw it was in Coventry, rang the hotel up, and very nice housekeeping lady told me they’d found it. Relief! Spent excellent weekend with Annelies and friends and spent a lot of time fussing Canada.

The trip back was much quicker, despite the heavy buckets of rain down pouring. Aquaplaning was the sport du jour, and I’m certain there were judges on the bridges doling out points for style.

Bank Holiday Monday was allocated to tearing old shed down, and perhaps considering putting new one up. Texted Chris to let him know I was up and around and that he could arrive to help, as arranged, any time he liked. By lunchtime, with the aid of my trusty hammer, my shed was in pieces and away from the concrete base. In strop as no sign of Chris, and concrete base was cracked, deformed and at an interesting angle. Old shed was doomed from the day it was built.

Yelled at Chris down the phone about being a lazy git and put the phone down. Checked mobile phone (that I’d left indoors, not expecting to have to use it), to find Chris hadn’t received text and was enquiring as to whether he should come down, or whether I was taking some ‘me’-time. Perhaps should have checked that before ringing to yell at him. Oops.

On Wednesday my skip arrived. And when the lady said it was the size of an upside down Golf, she wasn’t kidding. Perfect size, and got shed and rest of junk that’s been hanging around my back garden for six years in it. Woodlice started protest marches outside back door at uninformed removal of their accommodation.

After finding that one bag of concrete barely filled in the holes in the old shed base, we finally got the base flattened out using five bags. Went shopping and stopped by the Skoda garage to try out their new cars. And no, I’m not getting rid of Ghostie. Chris, however, may be looking at new car, so we felt the need to try the Octavia VRS – very, very quick, but I didn’t like it to drive.

Tried the Octavia Scout, which was… about as quite as Leah, and takes two full sets of dive kit without complaining, and climbs mountains in its spare time. Sales blokie said that its back end holds the road no matter how hard one pushes it around corners. So, on my turn to test drive, I felt the need to find a conveniently quiet roundabout and tried his claim out, going around and around until the salesman started squeaking about tyre wear. He was right though, no give in the back end at all. Went to The Compasses at Crundale for dinner.

Sunday 3rd June was not a good day. The concrete had set well, and was only a bit wonky rather than the mountains and valleys with a chasm down the middle it had originally been. So we put the supporting batons under the floor panel and attached the door to the door panel. Unfortunately ye anciente cordless screwdriver gave up the ghost, so construction stopped and we went diving instead.

Or perhaps it’s more correct to say we tried to. There was fog on the horizon, and the coast guard said it was a very large fog back and not to go too far out. Okey doke, so we decided to try and find the South Folkestone Lightship, which a couple of us have done before on a different boat. It was mildly choppy once we left the harbour, but nothing Medsac couldn’t handle with ease, and certainly well within the bounds of diving. Except the engine kept losing power. After wallowing for a short period of time, and much manly discussion of fuel valves, injector coils and electrical widgets, we discovered that Andy’s cylinder was sitting firmly on the fuel line. After re-stowing the cylinder and sniggering a lot, we continued on our mission to find the Lightship.

A sudden whizzing sound and a very startled Chris tried to work out what had gone overboard. A little rope movement under my bum, which I’m certain must not be unlike sticking a snake down ones pants, and the whizzing thing turned out to be the painter karabiner having flown from one side of the boat to the other. Fortunately without taking anyone’s head off, although with some people that might be hard to tell.

It remains a mystery as to who failed to clip the karabiner to the boat.

Eventually we reached the general area where the Lightship was supposed to be. Much wallowing was done as we failed to find it. We passed over one blip, but that was more likely to be an overgrown spider crab than any sort of wreck. More wallowing later, we gave up and went to find the Leicester; a known wreck that was already programmed into our GPS. A little wallowing occurred as we attempted to hook into it, but eventually, we were ready to go.

The instant the engine was cut, Adrian made a particularly athletic manoeuvre to the side of the RIB, and spent time spontaneously feeding the fish. As he was doing so well at it, I decided that the fish on the other side of the rib were clearly being left, and in the most elegant manner possible, spent time feeding them.

Chris and Andy disappeared down to the wreck whilst Adrian and I admired the beautifully clear visibility, and noted the incoming fog. Nothing to worry about for the moment, so we continued with the fish feeding. As Adrian leaned over to feed a particularly tenacious fish, he was somewhat startled to discover that Chris was there, and I discovered Andy on my side of the boat. They had gone down just in time for Chris’ mask to crack, therefore terminating the dive almost before it had begun. With the fates obviously against us, we headed back to harbour, having to negotiate the very large fog bank between it and us.

On the Monday evening, we went to the dive club. Chris was supposed to go swimming to try out his other mask, but got distracted by a lovely twin set. I went with one of the Duke of Edinburgh girls. Who had all the buoyancy control of a manic helium balloon. But we got there in the end.

Last night we went to the Coastguard, a club trip Chris had organised. It was a most excellent evening involving, amongst other things, setting off all kinds of flares which sorted the closet pyromaniacs from everyone else; mum getting all over-excited about Winnie and Pooh (two big cannons for those who are wondering), and a call out to rescue four lads from a the oozing mud banks of Sandwich. An excellent time was had by all I feel.

Boozey days

Because we’re slightly insane, we decided to take a cross country drive to Vobster Quay near Bristol. We kinda figured that actually it wasn’t very far away from sis n hubby, so arranged for her to meet us there with new puppy in tow.

Vobster was very cold. On the first dive we went to see if we could find out the temperature at the coldest part. My wet suit was surprisingly not frozen. We didn’t go into the deepest pit, but were able to confirm that it was 7deg at 25 meters. The fact that we had intended to go in the opposite direction to the 25 metre pit was a minor detail and blamed entirely on silty trails that we mistook for the wall.
Richard and Annelies’ puppy, Canada, is just gorgeous with moose sized paws and the ultimate in puppy dog eyes. She was a hit with the divers, with even fully kitted up guys stopping to bend down and talk to her.
And best of all, after the second dive we got to go and have a really nice chilli at Annelies and Richard’s house and see their redesigned garden, which looks much better.
On the Friday, tensions were high after a crappy week at work, so Chris very thoughtfully booked us for dinner at the Coastguard in St Margaret’s Bay. It was really nice to get away and relax.
Saturday 28th we were woken to the news that the planned dive was blown out. Commiserating over a cup of coffee, I was slightly concerned to feel the bed vibrate. And, blaming Chris for having an over enthusiastic scratch, immediately put the investigation of a new bed as this one was clearly on the verge of collapse, on my mental to do list, and thought no more of it. Was rather shocked therefore when phones started screaming as people were trying to find out if we were okay due to the ginormous explosion in Ashford. Which was in fact an earthquake off Folkestone.

We decided to go on the hunt for some dive gear, and chose to avoid Folkestone due to the road inspections post-earthquake going on. Arriving at a major shop in Whitstable, we found it had vanished. A couple of phone calls later we discovered that it had transported itself two hundred yards around the corner. We also discovered that it had reduced its opening hours to weekday mornings only. Fat lot of good that was. Went to another shop in Gravesend which had no stock in. Thoroughly PO’d, we went in search of a pub and found one. It had alcohol and newspapers and that was really all there was to say about it.
Sunday 29 April, we took Medsac one out for boat handling practice. Lots of high speed drills and tick over speed manoeuvres were performed, and an ad-hoc experiment in tippy toeing through shallows.
In the afternoon., much to my complete shock, an actual electoral candidate knocked on my door to say hello. Spent 20 minutes nattering about the world and the universe. The gentleman in question was pretty useless, but his lieutenant could hold an intelligent conversation. Maybe I’ll vote for him just because he came around and said hello.
Monday night, Dive Club was Piccadilly Circus with clashing events happening due to miscommunications. I was part of the team that took five Duke of Edinburgh young ladies to the pool for a swimming test. We had a broad range from two county swimming champions through to quivering blob. Quivering blob, once we’d taught her how to dive from the side of the pool, actually turned out to be the best diver of the lot.
Tuesday, the big end of year meeting with the bank and accountants happened. It was thankfully short, and I got a big hug from the corporate accountant and a large box of choccies from CAT because of all the work I put in. Not sure whether to be relieved or suspicious. Think I’ll opt for relieved. Stress levels now dropped considerably.
Thursday went to vote. As usual, I was the only person in there voting, which is actually quite intimidating with all those people looking on.
You remember those teeny loaches I got at the beginning of April to reduce my snail population? Well, those loaches are now the size of fat gerbils. The snail population has been decimated and the surviving snails have formed The Rebellion. When the loaches retire for the night, all those sneaky members of The Rebellion crawl up the glass en masse to get air and then make HALO jumps back down and into the gravel.

Saturday we helped mum celebrate her birthday at Blakes, which was lovely as usual, and then went to put Medsac1 the water for her summer berth. A successful day all told.
Sunday we went to a craft fair at Tunbridge Wells, to meet Chris’ parents for Ann’s birthday. I found pressies for people to stock up on which was very helpful. We stopped at a random pub outside Goudehurst on the way back which was nice, and worth investigating food wise another day.

Monday we dived at Leybourne to try out my under-suit and dry-suit combo. Most excellently toasty warm. Next time, if I remember to screw the valve cap on the drysuit air intake, I might even stay dry.
Due to a strange tiny wriggly thing spotted by chance in my fish tank, I discovered that Bill and Boink have become proud parents. I’ve so far counted fifteen Boinklets.

Last weekend was a girlie weekend, and we descended upon Coventry for a convention. We left Coventry still standing… just about. Unless people really, really want to know, I’m not going to report on it – so many other people already have, and unless you’re into Smallville, Supernatural, Buffy, Angel or SG-1, it really, really wouldn’t mean anything. Fantastic weekend, terrific company.
After four days partying and a cumulative total of twelve hours sleep over the period, came back home and charged up to the dive club to deliver a lecture to our brand new Ocean Divers. Very much not my best effort. I discovered that I do in fact have a previously uncharted caffeine limit. Two large coffees are normal, the Red Bull after was good, but the pint of Pepsi tacked on the end was probably a mistake. I’ve never wanted to go and run a marathon, but that night I’d have been willing to try one or even two marathons in a row.

Today we went on a Chris organised trip to a brewery – the Nelson micro brewery in the Chatham dockyards. It was a great day, very down to earth, without any of the pretentiousness of bigger breweries. We were split into two groups for the tour, and we were in the second group, thus spending an hour or so being plied with vast quantities of their beer by a very nice young lady. Sadly, she had to go home when it was our turn to go for the tour, leaving the other group to er, not get drunk.
We retired to a pub to relax afterwards, had a walk around the marina and returned home. It’s very exhausting touring breweries. Apparently.

Nonsense and stuff

So, carrying on from where we left off last time, I discovered quite accidentally, whilst using a pair of industrial scissors to chop up some cardboard, that industrial scissors are really good at shearing off acrylic nail extension. Spent time deliberately shearing off the tops of the rest of extensions.

Did I mention Jen got me a Jensen Ackles (one of my TV boys for those who don’t know) cross-stitch for Christmas? It’s simple cotton so very, very easy to work. Aiming to finish by The Weekend in mid-May. Suspect might be a bit over-ambitious.

Due to snail explosion in aquarium, attempted to introduce clown loaches again. Ickle ones this time. Immediately discovered need to explore methods of giving them their supplemental blood worms without the other fish (Keyop) getting there first.

Friday 23rd was Chris’ birthday. Decided that posh wrapping paper would be unappreciated, so carefully selected paper with cartoon octopi and fish on it from the children’s section of Hallmark . Seemed to go down better than the actual presents. Spent the evening with the dive club at an Indian Restaurant in Rainham. Good food, interesting company, non-existent service.

Got woken up at 7.30 Saturday morning by Café below work. Water leaking through their ceiling. As I was in Rochester, sent boss (CAT) in to switch off stop cock. Have you ever tried to get a plumber out for a small job? Doesn’t happen; do it yourself, they say; just tighten the iso valve they say. Buoyancy Ade from the Dive Club agreed to fix it as a favour to me. And the reason why it couldn’t be fixed ourselves? The isolation valve had been welded shut.

Spent time picking off the rest of the nail extensions and flicking them at Chris and the kits. No one was very impressed except me.

Discovered that holding frozen bloodworms in fingers until melted worked quite well. Loaches got a couple of worms, Ben had a good old suck of my thumb and Keyop nibbled my fingers before tugging the bulk of worms free and swallowing them whole.

We spent an evening at an Indian Restaurant in Rochester. Good food, interesting company, excellent service.

Chopped hair off. It’s all around about an inch long. *bliss*. Sleek and elegant pixie cut. Need to experiment with it.

Friday 30th March was Dom’s last day. We celebrated with much wine at pub. In the evening we went with Jude to a Chinese Restaurant in Chatham. Good food, interesting company, bagpipes with pudding.

On Saturday, I went to the see my bank manager as one does every once in a while; a half hour appointment. After spending far too much time discussing my finances we then spent the other twenty nine minutes discussing eye surgery. She’s going to have laser done this year.

That evening we had a lovely time and mum and dad’s with Annelies and Richard. Excellent food, excellent company and excellent time had by all.

On Sunday was the dreaded Boat Handling. After a couple of drop outs, there was just me, Chris and Buoyancy Ade up for examination. Due to a minor communication hiccup, the Instructor taking us (Pete) ordered us to be at Gillingham Marina at 8.30 *snore* as he was unaware that we could not launch the RIB until high water.

We practiced some chart work at McDonalds (it was *warm*, okay?!). We launched the RIB, and took off up the Medway. We didn’t go far; the water was a little lumpy and we just needed to be far enough out to be able to do high speed drills, so we lurked just outside the speed limit.

Pete demonstrated some things, one important point that he tried to do were donuts at full throttle as tight as possible until the engine cavitated (actually, not cavitate, but aerivate or something that I can’t pronounce let alone spell – basically the engine makes a loud unhealthy rattling noise), but the engine refused to do anything of the sort purring away happily. He was very impressed –a sign of a good engine on a well set up boat.

We all passed the course. However, we decided that I should never be allowed to put divers in the water unsupervised (I kept dropping our pretend ‘virtual’ divers just about anywhere but where they needed to be). Ade should never be allowed to pick divers or anyone else up unsupervised (he either ran them over or missed entirely), and Chris should never be allowed to park the boat when he’s in a strop (less said, better).

It was a good day, very cold, but fun and instructive. Much looking forward to practising this season. Laughed muchly at fishermen attempting to get baby fishing boats on trailers without getting either trailers or shiny new range rovers wet.

Tried spiking hair a bit with mousse. Ended up looking like a woolly sheep pulled through a hedge backwards. Not sexy.

Discovered that allowing bloodworms to melt in net at top of tank and then distributing randomly in tank works marvellously well. However, when putting hand in tank to clean, fish nibble in hopeful anticipation of receiving bloodworms.

On Good Friday, tried spiking hair with extreme fixing gel. Excellent Johnny Rotten look achieved. Or, to put it another way, stick fingers in plug socket to achieve same result. We were due to go to Chris’ mum and dad. We left on time, but got to Clackett Lane and rolled past at twenty miles an hour. This probability was factored in to our timing. The fact that we were still rolling along at 20mph long after Clackett Lane was not good news, so we called Ann and Dave up. The plan was to go to a craft fair, and we agreed that our ETA would not be conducive for this, so we came off the M25 at Lingfield and followed our noses.

Good Friday is not a good day to drive when one is in a hurry, so we happily rolled through the countryside still at 20mph, with no particular place to be. Found a beautiful old, recently renovated pub called the White Hart near Wakehurst Place. Had a gorgeous lunch sitting in the sunny garden.

Rolled back to Ashford cross country and retired back up to Rochester.

At the moment, we’re sitting in Chatham library manning a dive club exhibition, waiting for someone to be interested, other than the lady who asked us we knew where we could stamps and the man looking for the Ordnance Survey maps.