I...am...on...holiday

Been a while since I've posted - I kid myself that Instagram pictures speak a thousand words so there is no need to blog - but I reckon the opportunity to kill a few minutes while waiting for a plane presents an opportunity to dust off the cobwebs. Blogwebs?

So I am on holiday. Yep, you heard. Holiday. By myself. First trip flying solo since kids arrived. Almost; I did a work trip in 2010 when AJ was one, but other than that - Fiji with the family, nothing on my tod.

This holiday came about almost by accident. In my mind it went something like this: While wondering if I'd ever run another marathon - post blowing up my achilles (hyperbole!) and recovering but then putting in my slowest ever Six Foot Track time - I meandered to the Berlin Marathon website and spotted that it takes place when Australian schools are on holiday. My work is tied to school terms. This means it is a quiet time for me. So I put my name in the ballot. Assuming I'd not get a spot. I was probably a bit drunk.

So I got a spot in this year's Berlin Marathon. And as Berlin is reasonably close to London I decided to chuck a couple of weeks on the trip. So here I am. Checked in, plugged in and waiting for my first flight. Given that I tried to VPN into work before I started blogging, I don't think I am quite in holiday mode yet. But once I'm in the air there is no point in worrying about stuff.

I'll worry anyway; maybe more about that later.

So, a few idle musings.

It was only later that I thought a good thing to do when the kids are off school might be to spend time with the kids and not piss off by myself to run around Berlin then get drunk with my mates. #worldsbestdad.

As my ferry pulled away from the wharf, clear blue sky above and clear water below, 25 degrees - I could not help but think this felt a bit like a holiday. Drifting past the bridge and Opera House (with resident seal in residence) that thought was tough to shake. But I was wearing a hoodie, so I felt like a local (and a lot like a soft southern shite.)

too much plastic!

I had a Stabucks coffee which was as ordinary and inoffensive as I remember from when I last had one. I can't remember when I last had one, but I am sure it was ordinary and inoffensive. I think I was trying to convince myself I was on holiday. I subsequently beat myself up over the ridiculous amount of single use plastic I'd got for free with my single slice of toast. Grrr...

Check in was uneventful. Bit bored now.

The coming challenge is to remain awake for the duration of flight 1 (a bit over 8hours from 3pm, upstairs on an A380) so I can sleep overnight on my 12hours second leg. That one gets in at 7am-ish. If I can do the awake/sleep thing, the theory goes, I don't get jet lagged, disembark running on local time and have a cruisy 48hours to get over the flight before the race on Sunday. It is a beautiful plan.

OK, I'm rambling. Time to get some sounds on and chill.

the diving and the divers - in the beginning

Portland
Originally uploaded by Auswomble

In the mid to late nineties my then girlfriend Rose decided that I needed a hobby. Can't remember the details. At the time I was working in Victoria, London at PA Consulting - my first proper job. Rob worked there too, or maybe he worked in the Cambridge office; can't remember. He was a diver. Again, the details are sketchy. But between talking to Rose and Rob, and having to spend the odd few days in the Cambridge office, and having a work trip to Australia on the cards I decided to start scuba diving. I'd tack some holiday on the work trip and go to the reef. As it turned out I also dived in Sydney, with Rob.

I learnt to dive in a brick pit near Peterborough called Gildenburgh. I combined the PADI Open Water Course with Certifice IV in Learning and Development which dropped the price because it was part government funded. Go figure. I was driving a 2.5ltr diesel engined CJ7 Jeep to the office in Cambridge and claiming my mileage, earning more than the car drank. Accommodation on-site was, well, basic. But cheap. I learnt to dive pretty much for free. On the downside, I learnt to dive in April. In a pit. In Peterborough. Damn near froze myself to death, some students bailed early and we all shivered barely-controllably in our ill-fitting 7mm semi-dry suits. We kneeled on wooden platforms anchored at various depths in the cold, green, crap-filled water to perform our skill drills. I saw a bus. Our open water dives comprised of following ropes attached to the platforms at one end and the wreck of a bus at the other. I was supposed to see an airplane cockpit, but I was not first to get there and instead I saw clouds of light-obscuring silt. I saw no fish. It was fun in a masochistic kind of way. I think the water was between 4 and 6 degrees centrigrade. I must have removed and replaced my mask, removed my reg, done my fin-pivots and hovers, but I don't remember much. On one skills dive I was at the very end of our kneeling line of students. I did a skill first - mask removal, maybe - and then had to wait what seemed like forever for the rest to complete the skill. Cold and green. I remember cold and green. I know I did a giant stride entry from a platform about 7ft above the lake surface. And it rained a lot on both of the weekends over which I competed my course. But complete it I did and I became an Open Water Diver.

My first dive after getting my PADI Open Water cert was on Queensland's Barrier Reef. The water was 26 degrees and felt like a bath. I think I drained half a tank laughing at how preposterously warm and clear the water was compared to Gildy. That is all I remember of the two dives I did. I did another dive or 2 in Sydney, with Rob. All I remember about that was a long drive to Palm Beach, and that we did one dive off of the Barrenjoey Headland. If I didn't now live in Sydney I'd have forgotten those details long ago.

I must have enjoyed it because some time not-too-long afterwards I bought a compete set of gear from a tattooed, pierced dude running Diving Leisure London in Battersea and also booked myself on the Advanced Open Water course. Once again, only sketchy details. We dived under a pier at night. The navigation dive was off of Chesil Beach, where the water on the day was incredibly clear and I could see where I was headed, 15m away, without needing to use the compass. Good job too, as my compass use was awful and I needed to redo that dive in Portalnd Harbour to get my Advanced open Water Diver c-card. I remember driving my 1979 Porsche 924 (the 1982 jeep was gone) from the Chesil Beach to Portland carparks in my dive suit. I must have looked a complete tool, but would've though I was king-shit. I loved that car; also loved the 6.5mm mares semi-dry, a very nice suit indeed. I may still have my first regulator, and I think I have my original BC which I only wear when teaching or assisting. Everything else was upgraded as it became worn out or as I discovered it was a bit on the crap side.

My UK diving career sort of ended there, though I later returned to the UK and spent many more weekends in Portland. I was going to be made redundant in 1999 and was moving to Sydney. One of the reasons I wanted to move to Sydney was the unrivalled opportunities to dive right on my doorstep, and one of the reasons I was looking at redundancy was that my company were only prepared to look at a transfer to Melbourne from London where my job was for the chop. Don't get me wrong, Melbourne is a lovely city, but without diving on the doorstep. And besides, Rose's sister was a recruitment consultant in Sydney.

I got to Sydney and stuck with diving for far longer than I stuck with Rose.

Namecheck time. Through one of the few wonders of Facebook I am still in contact with Rob. And, from my PA days, Mark who did move to Melbourne, Scott, who I once took a chopper ride with en route to a chamber, Alan (my big-boss) and his wife Helen who ran the work-gym and was probably responsible in large-part for my attitude to exercise and hence my running.