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.