Brass Monkeys

In preparation for our forthcoming holiday (hooray) herself and myself ventured of to the NDAC dive centre in Chepstow to refresh our diving skills and try out our equipment.

It’s quite an impressive sight, with the car park overlooking the huge hole in the earth which was the quarry and is now the dive lake.

They were a great bunch at the centre and we soon had all our kit sorted out and jumped on the minibus for a lift down to the water’s edge (much appreciated, it would have been a long walk). After the usual faffing about we took the plunge – literally – and got rather a shock as to just how cold it was.

We descended down to the bottom of that part of the lake at about 14m and it was eerie and murky – typical British diving. To try to prevent ourselves getting lost, we headed to the quarry wall and followed that around – admiring the collection of gnomes they had thoughtfully installed – and Olga tried out some extreme ironing whilst I tried, rather unsuccessfully, to snap some photos.

We had a quick surface interval on the pontoon and then went in to the shallower end for our second dive, which was just as cold and murky but a good deal shorter. Olga broke her torch, which was not a good Omen, and after swimming through a couple of cargo containers we decided to call it a day.

The showers were a welcome relief, being nice and warm, and after a quick cup of coffee to further defrost ourselves, we headed off – mission accomplished.

Back to the Future

We had a reunion of everyone who I used to work with this weekend.

It was a lovely afternoon and we all relaxed in the beer garden and caught up on things trivial and meaningful. It was especially goo d for me - having finally secured a job – because there was a real sense of everybody moving on. It already seems like a long time since we all worked there together – I guess it was nearly 18 months, which is quite a while. Good to see everyone doing something new and also good to reminisce and air a few of the old grievances as well.

Shaken, not stirred

We had the pleasure of enjoying a champagne cocktail evening this weekend.

We seem to have got into the habit of doing these tasting events every couple of months were our neighbours get together under some pretext and then eat and drink to our hearts content.

On this occasion, champagne cocktails were the order of the day and we were presented with a dazzling array of different cocktails – from the simple to the bizarre. In order to maintain the semblance of a serious tasting session, we had to score each one before moving onto the next. This resulted in a great deal of serious thought and consideration being given to each one (no, not really).

A clear winner did emerge by the end of the evening but none of us can remember which it was – I guess we’ll just have to repeat the whole thing again to find out.
Being champagne, the morning hangover was thankfully minimal – a good tip, I think.