A Tale of Christmas Spirit

Christmas is here, a time for fun, family, and feasting. Especially feasting. This is the one time of the year I don't watch every single thing I eat. (People think I'm naturally thin. I'm really, really not.)

It also means that thems of us as do the organising are busy. This year I ran three Christmas Dos, all of which went generally well, except for the fact that dragging people out of the office to celebrate in a year when half the team has left or been made redundant was really a bit of a non-starter. Still, the ones who turned up to the two work dos enjoyed them.

The other one was a truly heartwarming experience. I won't go into too much detail out of respect for privacy, but one member of my group chose the Christmas meal to reveal an aspect of themselves to us that was clearly a great challenge for them personally, and took a lot of courage. (I also had no idea about this, proving that no matter how clued-in you think you are, there's always something happening that you don't know about.)

I'll admit, when I first got the email about their attendance at the group meal, my first thought was "Is this... possibly... a wind-up?" I then discarded this as being one of this first reactions to a situation that actually isn't very helpful. I sent what I hope was a light-hearted message of encouragement, and turned up early to the meal*. As the clock ticked on, and person in question did not appear, I started to hope that they hadn't backed out or had a nervous fit.

But then they arrived.

I have spent a fair part of the past ten years organising this group, though I'm far from the only one to do so. It's patronising to be proud of other adults, but if it wasn't, I'd say I was hugely proud of my group. We smiled, we made welcome, we were happy to see our friend. It was one of the best Christmas meals I've ever attended.

Afterwards we received a very sweet email, with one sentence I'll quote: "There was not a single iota of discomfort. I am still on a high from it."

No matter what happens, this Christmas is a success.

Peace, goodwill, and love to all humanity, in our many unique forms. 




* Well, early for me. I'd be the first to say that time-keeping is not my strong suit.

Happiness Ain't Good For Blogging

Yep, it's the inevitable blogpost about not really having anything to blog about. I'm not really cycling or diving at the moment, due to the weather. It turns out that the very tiny downside of being secure in your job is that the war stories are less interesting. "I wrote a press release as part of the job I'm now sure I've got" is more fun for me, but less interesting to an audience than "Half of my team will get fired in a few months, and I might be one of them".

This is not a complaint.

I could try writing that "What It's Like To Be High-Functioning With Asperger's Syndrome And A Few Other Funny Personality Traits" article I keep meaning to do, but right now that doesn't seem like as much of a priority as getting on with Christmas.

Possibly Christmas will provide a few funny stories. Until then, I'll be entertaining myself by mastering the fine art of Munchkin. A game that can be best summed up by the following exchange between me and an experienced player during my first time playing it:

Me: "So, at this stage I could use this Wandering Monster card to send the Plutonium Dragon to defeat the coalition Alex has put together to fight the Bullrog, but my only reason for doing that would be to be a complete dick to Alex?"

Experienced gamer: "Yep, you're getting the hang of the game."

Done This For Real Four Times...

So, I spent a weekend refreshing my knowledge of Emergency First Response, or First Aid as we more usually call it over here. Nothing I hadn't done before, but you do need to practice, or you lose your skills. After a day and a half spent pounding the chest of a dummy and faking collapsing (I can do a really good convincing faint - practice makes perfect), I now have a shiny card. Much of the EFR course is spent teaching the following principles:

1. Thou Shalt Not Endanger Thyself
2. Thou Shalt Call The Ambulance
3. Thou Shalt Not Make The Patient Worse Whilst Awaiting The Arrival Of People With Actual Medical Training and Drugs

As is oft the way with divers, we could have treated it with more solemnity. Probably the most solemn comment was from my friend T, who used to be a mental health nurse, and commented that he'd done CPR for real four times "and they all died". Realistically, if your heart has stopped, the odds you'll be coming back are about one in ten. Still, the point is to try, and make sarcastic comments, as follows:

"He's hit his head, so he'll need to go to hospital so they can shine a light in his eyes and check his brain's still in there."

"There will be no flashing of boobs."

"Mate, the way you're coughing... I'm not giving you mouth to mouth!"

The Strangest Conversation I Have Ever Had About Paperweights

It looked a bit like this, but with a diving helmet.

I should have written this up last week. Whilst at the York Diving College, you are offered the chance to buy some of their souvenirs by viewing them in the display cabinet. (You're offered it several times - they really like you to know where the list for the souvenirs is. Which is fair, since running any form of diving operation can be insanely expensive.)

I already own more T-shirts than I need, but I did fancy a keyring. I also fancied a rather nice perspex paperweight with the image of an old-fashioned diving helmet inside it, as a Christmas present for AuntOfCyclingDiver, who was a diver long before I was. I wrote "keyring and big perspex box with old-fashioned diving helmet" on the list.

An hour later, just before we went in the decompression chamber, the lady running the bar appeared through the door and started handing out the souvenirs and collecting the cash. All went smoothly, until she got to me.

"Are you the lady who ordered the paperweight?"

"Yes, if we're talking about a big clear block with a diving helmet in it, that was me."

"Sorry, I'm afraid we're out of them. The supplier's dead."

I couldn't help it. I laughed. Which is awful, but it was the sheer unexpectedness of it. I was expecting "We've run out" or "We don't make them any more."

"Okay, is there any chance you could sell me the one in the display cabinet?"

"Afraid not. Sorry."

"Okay." [beat] "If you don't mind me saying, maybe if it's not for sale, you could take the paperweight out of the display cabinet."

"Okay. Well, you know how the light in the cabinet doesn't work?"

"Ah." [beat] "Is the key lost?"

"Afraid so. Sorry."

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask if all the locksmiths in North Yorkshire were also dead, but fortunately diplomacy prevailed.

A Tour Around the Hat

So, the decompression dive! A fun day out, which began by trying on the Siebe-Gorman deep-sea commercial diving gear. This is the big brass helmet that everyone pictures when you say "deep sea diving", and was used by the Royal Navy until around 1980. There is a excellent reason they don't use it any more; it's incredibly heavy. The whole deep-sea rig, including weighed boots and ballast, weighs around two and a half stone more than I do. (For comparison, my usual scuba gear weighs about a third what I do.)

Commercial diving helmets are known as "hats", and it was quite fascinating being given a tour around the equipment, until the time came to get into it. I'm sure regular commercial gear is also pretty heavy, but with this you basically put it on and go in the water, just to get the weight off your shoulders. It was fun, and I'm glad I did it, but my dive log entry reads "Give me scuba any day!" At the end of the dive, the instructors gave us instructions for the decompression "dive"; interrupt the instructor a lot, and take a balloon in. (A balloon blown up at the "deepest" point of a chamber dive will explode as the pressure decreases on the way back up again, making a bang and getting bits of rubber all over the inside of the camber.)

Onwards to the decompression chamber. I don't know what you may be picturing, but try picturing a big metal cyclinder on legs in someone's basement, and you've pretty much got it. (Surrounded, for some reasons, by pictures of pin-up girls. Apparently Scubapro used to think "naked tits" were what they needed to use to sell dive gear back in the day; thank God we've moved on - a bit.) The chamber looks so small, you cannot imagine one person fitting in, but five of us managed to sit next to each other.

A "chamber dive" involves sitting in a decompression chamber whilst the air pressure inside is increased to the equivalent of a 50m deep dive in water (beyond the recreational limit). This allows you to experience the narcosis you get at this level; nitrogen breathed under increased pressure makes you feel drunk. The chamber attendent then decreases the air pressure, including two decompression "stops" on the way "up", and at some point, the balloon goes bang. This is a useful experience to have for two reasons; 1) it gives you the experience of the narcosis you get when diving to 50m, and the sensation of being unable to "surface" (or leave the chamber) until the dive concludes, and 2) you get to experience what chamber treatment is like, which is good since it's the standard treatment for decompression injuries sustained when diving.

I was expecting to be nervous, but the dive was, actually, very good fun. Probably it's the narcosis, but we had a whale of a time. Except for the attendent, who spoke through the chamber's radio in tones of deep resignation "Can you pick up all the pieces of the balloon on the way out, please."

"I've Done This For Real..."

I've been busying myself arranging some dive training. I shall be spending tomorrow at the Diving College near York, playing around with old-fashioned dive gear, and doing a "pot dive", where they put you in a hyperbaric chamber and drop the pressure to the equivalent of a 50m dive, which is beyond my current range. I'm a bit nervous about this last one, but it will be good to find out what a "pot" is like on the inside, since if I ever have an accident whilst diving, that's where I'll end up.

Hyperbaric chambers are known as "pots" by divers, after one of the most famous; the chamber designed by Jack Haldane, son of JS Haldane who, among his many other accomplishments, pretty much single-handedly created dive tables and made it possible to dive without giving yourself the bends. More about the amazing Haldanes here: Grace under pressure.

The next  training course will be in two week's time, and will involve no diving at all; I'm renewing my Emergency First Responder certification. Basically a First Aid course angled at divers. I last did this two years ago, and I'm overdue a refresher. My memories of the last time I did this mostly go as follows:

• One of the senior divers there had a small white Scottie dog that used to live in the shop. One look at all of us crowding in to do our training, and it ran and hid under the wetsuit rack, and wouldn't come out. 
• Most First Aid training is less about splinting broken bones and more about "here's how to keep them alive until the ambulance gets here".
• The instructor [who works as a nurse] started the CPR training by remarking "I've done this for real three times; they all died". (Statistically, that's pretty much how it goes. the odds are one in ten, but you do it in the hope that the person you're currently rescue-snogging will be the one in ten.)

The next stop is to refresh my Rescue Diver training. It is one of my weirder accomplishments that I can give people mouth-to-mouth in the sea.  Here's hoping I never have to.

Possibly the creepiest photo I've ever taken (Jersey)

This is a baby (doll, thank God) in a gas crib (the infant equivalent of a gas mask) in the Jersey war tunnels, where I spent some time a few weeks ago. I was there for a happy occasion - a cousin's christening - but the day after the christening was an odd day. I was meant to dive but couldn't, due to the weather.

Instead, I went to the Jersey War Tunnels. Jersey was the only part of the British Isles to have been occupied by the Nazis during World War Two. The tunnels were built by the Nazis as an underground hospital, and the site is now a museum dedicated to the occupation.

This was the same day that I knew all of my friends at work were getting their results from the redundancy process at work. I knew mine, as my boss had let me know just before I headed off to Jersey, which was nice of him. (Well, it was nice, since I'd kept my job. Had it been bad news, I might have taken a different view.)

I wandered round the memorial garden, trying not to think about what was going on on in my office, at that moment, and feeling vaguely guilty that my sense of perspective was off.

Spent the rest of the afternoon watching "Gone Girl", as the news slowly trickled in by text about who was in, and who was out. As movie choices go, it seemed appropriate.

Return From Malta

I'm now back from Malta, and, after a week back in the UK, I've finally washed and put away all my diving gear. I'm a firm believer that my wetsuit should become acquainted with disinfectant on a regular basis, although this is not necessarily much fun when it gets dark at 4.30pm. I'm probably getting a reputation in the neighbourhood as Crazy Wetsuit in Bucket Lady.

Anyway. More tales of drunkenness and octopodes* in due courses.


* Believe it or not, this is the correct plural for octopus.

Tax Rebate Outcome, Redux

Yes, I kept my job again.

There's not a lot I can say this time that's any different to last time. I'm happy for me and the friends that got through, and sad for those who didn't.

I don't know if I can do this again, but that's a problem for next year.

Next week, I'm off to Malta. Blogging resumes shortly afterward!

No News As Yet

Still no news on the job front.

I'm checking out of the whole thing, and going off to Jersey for the weekend to visit the family. News will be posted here on my return!

Das Bierfest

Things We Learned At The Tynemouth Beer Festival

• That undertakers are the most likely to survive in a zombie apocalypse. (We began by agreeing that midwifery, tax collecting and undertaking were the three most certain professions. But would undertakers be doomed if the dead returned to life? We agreed not - they are used to dealing with corpses, and have ready access to shovels, an excellent weapon against the undead in its combination of 'sharp wide metal blade' and 'long wooden handle'.)
• That street food is a welcome addition to beer festivals. Seriously, I don't miss the days when greasy chips with "curry" sauce were the only food to be had. Give me a burger made from something that once went "moo", any day.
• What a beer festival looks like when it runs out of beer. See photo. 
• That ska-dancing is fun. 
• There is never a bad time to play "Monkeyman".

And one thing we did not expect to hear:

"Hang on, are they out of beer?"
"It's alright! They've been to Tesco's!"

Depressing Realisations, 1

When you are listening to music as a soundtrack for preparing for the fourth time to interview to keep your own job (I'm rapidly reaching the point where I think, I can't do this again, this is the last time), put Pulp's "Common People" on as a soundtrack for revising tackling inequality, and thinking, this song came out when I was 13.

It would be nice to think that in twenty years' time we'd moved on enough as a society that it was a historical curiosity, instead of the grim reality that it's more relevant than ever.

On the other hand, I have identified the song that will be my personal manifesto if I get booted (if you're in a hurry, skip to: 1.55)

The Tale of A Rose

When I learned we were due to have a Flower Communion at my church (a traditional Unitarian Ceremony), one thing I immediately thought was “I must take a rose in”.

I have a rather lovely rose bush growing in my back garden. It’s a “Forever Friends” rose, which is apt, since it was given to me as a moving-in gift by one of my best friends, J.

J and I have been friends since we were 14. We went to the same secondary school, and found ourselves sitting next to each other in GCSE Biology class. This was lucky, because the teacher was not especially concerned about arriving on time to his classes, and we soon got to talking to each other. It’s one of my few friendships – well, actually the only one – where one of the first bonding moments occurred over a shared refusal to dissect a lamb heart. (Her due to lifelong vegetarianism, me due to a lifelong unfortunate tendency to faint at the sight of blood.)

Following our shared dissection refusal, our lives took similar paths, as we moved to a different school to do our A-levels, went to the same university (Durham), and ended up living not far from each other. Our friendship has held steady through life’s rocky moments, and there have been some very rocky moments, but I am now the godson to her two adorable boys, who like to come around and rearrange my house for me every now and then. I particularly wanted the flower I would take to the Flower Communion to be a rose from the rose bush she had given me.

I did, however, face a problem. Since I had deadheaded it (you know you are at a certain point in life when the word “deadhead” enters your vocabulary), the rose bush, for reasons best known to itself, had decided to grow all ten of its flowers on a single stalk, as you can see. I really didn’t want to cut all of the roses off, but they had very short stalks.

I left deciding about it late, until the morning of the Flower Communion, itself, then went out with the secateurs to take a look. I took a closer look at the bush, and smiled.

As if it had read my mind, there, tucked away behind the flower stalk, the rose bush had grown a single perfect pink rose.

I clipped the rose carefully, tucked it into a bag, and carried it to church.

Here We Go Again

So, I have the date for my redundancy selection interview towards the end of September, and the deadline for submitting a written expression of interest.

Words don't quite capture how much I really don't want to do this again. Unfortunately, the only thing I'd rather do less is "not have a job", so here we go. I may be off the radar for a while.

In better news, I have, finally, achieved my diploma!

Sea-Flowers (Back to the Inverted World)

A piece I wrote for my church's Flower Communion.

Flowers are marvels, and beautiful in two ways. Firstly, they are beautiful simply to look at, but secondly, they are beautifully designed for their function, of allowing the plant to reproduce itself, and create the next generation of flowers. Insects and flowers exist together in harmony; the insect transferring pollen from one flower to another, and receiving its reward in the form of nectar. Yet there are no sea-living insects, no water-bees to transfer pollen or its equivalent between undersea flowers. So are there no flowers beneath the waves?

 

This is a plumrose sea-anemone, taken at St Abbs. Sea-anemones, of course, are named from land anemones…

Because it is very difficult for a human eye to look at a sea-anemone, and not immediately think “It’s a flower!”

The sea-anemone is fascinating, because it inverts the relationships we are used to with land-flowers. As most people know, it’s actually an animal, with a foot, a long tube-shaped body, and the familiar fringe of tentacles that make it look so flower-like under the water.

As most people also know, the sea-anemone’s behaviour is less like that of a land flower, and more like a Venus fly-trap. It stays still most of the time, but should a small fish or crustacean come near its tentacles, the anemone will swiftly sting it and eat it for dinner.

 Yet some creatures are immune to this; clownfish or porcelain crabs. Like a bee on a rose, the clownfish, or crab, and the anemone live together, each providing food and protection for the other.   

A highly-prized photo for divers is to capture an image of a clownfish or crab lurking within its anemone home; I haven’t managed it, but others have! In addition to its larger house-guest, each anemone contains many single-celled algae within it. The anemone provides the algae with a safe home, access to sunlight and protection from predators, and the algae provides its host with food and oxygen.

Anemones are not the only “sea-flowers”. Another beautiful animal is the feather-duster tubeworm, which feeds on particles filtered from the water around it with its long filaments:

The Book of British Marine Life comments that “There are few finer sights in our waters than a group of plumrose anemones swaying in the current”, which I agree with.  

Like so many things in nature, it is a marvellous sight. Above the waves, the flowers and insects exist side-by-side, each benefitting the other. Beneath the waves, the anemones may not be plants, but like their namesakes on land, they too exist as part of a marvellous web of life. I am truly lucky to be able to see a bit more of that web of life than many other people, and I hope you’ve enjoyed me sharing some of it with you.