Read it
and Weep - by 'Scoop' TomlinsonRead it
and Weep - by 'Scoop' Tomlinson
AUGUST
2002
Its worse than I thought, it’s worse than any of us thought!
Our closet ‘spotter’ has taken so many pictures that the Malta Bus
has come to England! Its bad
enough he took so many photos of the vehicles, with himself inside, outside, at
the back at the front, at the side, on the step and with a small party of our
club, but the steering wheel !!!! Just
how sad is that? And if that was
not bad enough, he is talking of making a collage from the photos, laminating
them, and using them for place mats! Martin,
get out more, pleaaaaaaaaase. Talking
of pictures there is a quite scary one of myself and our D.O. kitted up, blue
and yellow prevailing. There is nothing wrong with matching colours – you have
to have standards (or so Steph would have us believe).
As we have a quiet
training time at the moment, I find myself sitting on the sidelines watching –
‘Scoop’ having time to watch is just so much bad news for everyone.
It gives me time to pick up on the things I may have missed if I were
teaching underwater. Things like
divers searching through their kit bags frantically for the second fin that they
knew was in the bag at
last week pool session. Or
wandering around the pool ‘cos they know
they have put their mask somewhere. The
best entertainment of all being the total realisation that neither piece of
equipment are anywhere near Buxton Pool, but still at home.
Thank goodness for club equipment.
I think I have
finally flipped my lid! I must
spend too much time preparing this club rag, because I went to the bar one
Wednesday night and asked for a pint of ‘Free-Flow’. Of course I wanted a pint of ‘Cream Flow’.
Even Debbie behind the bar knew that a free-flow was ‘what divers
get’ – I need counselling fast – let me out!!
Finally some decent weather at Capernwray.
Sunshine, slight breeze a pleasant 15 deg. Celsius with only a spot of
rain - makes a change from the deluge of hailstones and freezing temperatures we
have been experiencing. Alan, Jane, Philip, Sean, Mervyn, Sam, Neil, Clive, Roy and
myself all turned up for training meet. Spot
the obvious– NO TRAINEES. No 6 mtr wellie dives today!
The visibility was down to 1-2 mtrs in places, but most of the divers
were experiencing 7-8 mtrs. Navigation
for the Bateman's failed, and being totally lost, surfaced at the far LH corner
of the quarry – oops! Roy and
Clive on the other hand navigated perfectly to and from the Podsnap on the
second dives – I was well impressed given the poor vis.
Sean dived with Mervyn and once again his suit leaked, on both dives. I’m not sure if he is conducting a science project with
water from as many sources he can fit in his suit or just too tight to get it
fixed. Sean, sort it!
Both of them practiced lifting the 26 kg weight with a lifting bag
(container), all went well, considering the last attempt when Mervyn and I
deployed it in Stoney and nearly wiped a diver out!
Mind you given the speed the container came back to the surface it could
have given a diver a nasty shock! The changes at Capernwray are impressive,
lecture rooms, larger shop, faster air fills and best of all beer in the
restaurant. Also there is a veranda to sit on in fine weather to watch
the divers below. Does this have a
ring of Stoney about it? All the same mod cons, but no getting up at 3 to fight
for a space on the car park. By
11ish however the car park became quite full, but still no one was queuing for
poll position. Never mind, new mod
cons or not, we still went over to the pub for a quick jar. Some habits die-hard!
Planning
and entering for the Carnival was tasked by the committee to Rob.
Obviously first things first – fill in the application form.
For most people not a difficult task, however, we are talking about
Wobbie here. Having sat with it on
the table in the pub for an hour, pondering the ‘theme’ of the float and
asking around for ideas, it suddenly dawned on him that he had just completed an
application form for the 2001 Carnival!
As most of you will know, well the ones that got knobbled for money anyway,
Mervyn did a sponsored bike ride. 50
miles later apparently his butt felt like it had been ‘buggered’ – his
words NOT mine. Sean deliberated:
1. How does he know what that feels like?
2. Wouldn’t it be better to actually put a saddle on the spike
next time. I bear no comments on
the subject myself, only to congratulate the loud tattooed one on his remarkable
achievement.
I
seriously worry about the men in this club, on a recent camping trip to Swanage,
it transpired that Roy tried to share a shower with James, walking in the
cubicle right behind him. I would
have known the look of horror on James face I live with Roy!
Mind you having ejected Roy back out of the door again, James then opened
the door and said: ‘alright then if you want to share you can’.
Talking of James, his girlfriend, Lydia was at Swanage also.
When he went for the boat dive, she was blowing kisses to him on his
departure. You can imagine the
ridicule that got, along with the rest of Buxton club waving him off from the
pier and blowing big wet kisses.
Some
of you may have seen the article about the club in the Buxton Advertiser, and if
you didn’t there is a copy in this issue of ‘Free-Flow’. There was a part
in it that brought a smile to our lips. “Members
of Buxton Sub-Aqua Club say that diving hundreds of metres beneath the water is
like being taken to an entirely different world”.
As Jane Bateman pointed out, at that depth probably the after-world!
Despite that at least we got almost a full page and hopefully some
recruitment gains from it. Thanks for organising it Rob, it was an experience for both
the report and myself.
The Chinese meal went down well again, except for the exceptionally long delay
on our table for food. This was due
to the 3 Batemans having a banquet consisting of 29 courses! Then to add insult to injury Mervyn and Bernie were last to
be served, then when it came it was wrong.
Mind you if Mervy had ordered the right numbers it would have been right.
Serves him right for taking the whiz out of me, when mine was last and
wrong last time. Tom is obviously
in the wrong profession, he should give up teaching and go for pressure
salesman. He threatened to take his clothes off if we didn’t buy
tickets. £1 a strip!
Who would pay that much to see him naked, especially when there is food
about! Mind you he did sell the
same numbered tickets twice! Are we
surprised given his nick name is ‘Ty Tarse’.
His ‘unusual’ sales method did well anyway and £52 was netted for
the club and boat funds.
The Buxton Explorer Scouts came along on 12th June for a try dive,
five of the little dears - spit. They
seem to have enjoyed their adventure with a threat that some may return to the
club for training. Their leader,
Jane, whom I would have expected to be a Scout Master,
but what do I know, knew our Jane from school.
They got on quite well underwater, as did the boys.
Some seemed to grasp the concept of buoyancy quite well, while others
added the Polaris missile approach to the ascent.
Never mind they all exited the water in full working order.
Thanks to those volunteers who took the task of accompanying them
underwater. Having joined Roy when
he gave them their ‘safety talk’ and ‘equipment lecture’ previously, I
managed to evade the underwater experience with them.
In fact, considering that juveniles surrounded me I kept my sanity quite
well!
Rob and Sean went for a peaceful dip in Capernwray. As we all know, Sean has a perpetual leak in his suit and
this was the trip that was going to find it – well that was the mission in
mind. First dive, as usual, PWT!
(p*** wet through). Rob being his
helpful, useless self offered to assist in the search of the elusive leak.
As Sean was wet from the waist down, Rob had the idea that if during a
shallow dive Sean was inverted, air would escape the offending hole and the
mission accomplished. Going along
with the idea, feet went up, no air came out.
By the time the dive was over, Sean was even more PWT. Above and beyond
the waist. His boots were full of
water, and when he squeezed them, a spurt of water escaped.
The boot was leaking, mystery solved, but not before all the water had
run as far down as his neck whilst he had been inverted.
The moral of the story – if you need a leak fixing don’t fetch a
plumber like Rob! Jane B,
reconsider who is doing your bathroom you may end up with more dives than
planned!!
Wednesday
26 June saw another birthday come and go for our chairman.
He was given a ‘ram posing pouch’ by his mate Andy, and trust me
having seen him Ram impression in Malta, it was a vast improvement.
Yea not to mention a huge box of wine gums of which none were passed
around. It appears he becomes more of a pig than a ram when wine gums
appear. We all have our vices I
suppose.
As
Jane was indisposed I took on the role of teaching her students, despite them
being very young. However, both
Liam and Michael are forward in their approach to the sport and they did very
well with mask clearing and buoyancy during their first ‘wet’ lesson.
I took quite a bit of stick off Mr Froggatt, Goosey and Ian Mycock as its
been a while since I was actually in the pool teach, but I rose above the
taunting and proceeded as any Instructor would.
That was until I dropped a lead weight right on the bridge of my foot.
Aware that I had two pairs of young ears standing right in front of me, I
took a deep breath as asked them to de-kit.
I immediately turned my back on them, grabbed by injured foot and swore
for England! See I can do
decorum on the odd occasion. Ouch!
Scoop...
[Home] [Arts] [Clubs&Pubs] [EatingOut&In] [HairHealthBeauty] [Home&Garden] [OnlineShopping] [Peak&Counties] [Pets&Vets] [PictureGallery] [PlacesToGo] [SleepingOut] [Sounds] [Sport] [The WrittenWord] [TouristInfo] [Travel&Transport] [Maps&Weather] [Cams] [PeakNetDesign] [EmailUs]
