A week or so ago I was on the Menai Straits in Wales inspecting the underside of boulders. As you do. More of that another time, I hope. I came home to find, amongst the usual glut of emails, one telling us that Ken Farrow, a fellow diver and long time friend, had died suddenly, […]
Archive for the 'Diving' Category
All emotional
Published May 2nd, 2008 in Diving, Running, broken ankle and ovarian cancer. 0 CommentsI went for my diving medical on Tuesday. I passed, despite having to step up and down off a chair for five minutes, which may be fine if you’re a 6ft North Sea commercial type but not if you’re little me. I left clutching my certificate and on the verge of tears. I’d put it down to […]
Long ago, in the days when I was naive, innocent and, dare I say, young, I thought that diving was the planet’s main repository of acronyms. SCUBA, BSAC, PADI, NAUI, ABLJ (remember those?), BC, AAS, ITC, PIE, TIE, IFT, NDC, NDO… The list could be very long. And boring. And growing - let’s add in ERD. […]
Whacky science
Published November 8th, 2007 in Atlantis, Diving, Miscellaneous stuff and Out & about. 0 CommentsI’ve just read Salmon fishing in the Yemen which should, I think, be compulsory reading for all scientific civil servants. It was certainly compulsive reading, and very funny, with its descriptions of a whacky project to establish a North Atlantic salmon run in the Yemen desert, the inevitable political machinations that arose and the talk of big […]
Winter arrived in Perthshire last week or it felt like winter as the air temperature plummeted with a high pressure system bringing sun and winds from the north. Fortunately there was no rain to speak of and the water temperature lags behind the air, so spending several hours a day snorkelling around freshwater lochs was not as […]
Conflicts
Published September 21st, 2007 in Children, Diving, Out & about, Wales and Working at home. 1 CommentI’m off into the wilds of Perthshire for a week or so, looking for Slender Naiads - no, not water nymphs but a rare species of plant that grows in some of the freshwater lochs up there. After that, I’m off to Wales, weather and engineers permitting, to dive on the only Welsh maerl bed, conveniently […]
I passed my HSE diving medical today. I thought I’d share that nugget with the world in general. It occurred to me that perhaps I should adopt an annual injury ploy as the doctor didn’t make me do the dreaded step-up-on-the-chair-to-see-if-you’re-fit test, on account of my unfortunate ankle. But on second thoughts… On a related theme, those wonderful people […]
The holiday from hell?
Published August 20th, 2007 in Diving, Family, Holidays and Islands. 2 CommentsSuperfluous to requirements on holiday:-
Shorts
Cropped trousers
Sun hats
Rounders bat
My crutches!
Would have been useful:-
More fleeces
More waterproofs
GP2’s current wetsuit (ie not the one he grew out of 2 years ago)
More warm things for under my drysuit
Wooly hats
Flask.
But I’m glad we left at home:-
The tent.
I’m sure you get the idea. On our last two holidays on Coll we experienced weather […]
The boys are back, exhausted and happy. They’ve had a ball and the concert yesterday was fantastic, a really high standard. They’re full of stories and are both set on going back again next year, so 6 hours a day of music and a hectic social scene has enthused rather than discouraged them. GP2 went straight to bed […]
I went on a skive masquerading as my own CPD last Tuesday - diving at St Abbs, ostensibly to break my duck and get in the water for the first time this year. In fact, to meet Jane who was over from Belfast for a few days. It was a lovely day and we had […]
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