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.