All the playings stopped in the playground now, she wants to play with her toys a while

Do you need any clues???

Thats it, Ive finished my Dive Master course. I swam my 400 meters unaided and unencumbered with any extra bits and bobs attached to me. Just me and my Daniel Craigs. (It took me over 18 minutes, but all i had to do was finish it) When i came out the pool, i checked my pulse….it took me a minute to find one it was weak and intermittent and I’m sure i suffered a heat attack in the pool. My skills test (i could have murdered my buddy for that one) and a rescue dive (I really could have murdered my buddy for that one) the rescue involved getting him from the pool bottom, drag his ass 25 meters and get him out the pool whilst de kitting both of us of ALL SCUBA gear on the way.HE WEIGHS 32 STONE.(and if he doesn’t, he bloody well ought too) Anyway, with my veins popping out my neck and a splattering of wee inside my DCs, i completed my tasks. All that was left was the rest of the day helping out, and the snorkel test.

Helping Kate with four Polish guys was different. I practically had to force one of them to speak English and be an interpreter, he did this well and made the dive a lot easier I’m sure. (Although i found later that another two could speak English), ooh fun and games. I really enjoyed helping out, i even spent 10 minutes being one of the guys weight belts (since he just couldn’t stay on the seabed, i got on his shoulders and got rid of all my buoyancy. two of the guys eventually threw the towel in and said they didn’t want to go any deeper and could they get out the water, well that was my dive ended as i went with them whilst the instructor took the other two out to sea for a swim. All the while, lightening was cracking open the clouds and the thunder God was a little peeved so he threw his potatoes down the stairs (Hey, thats what i was told from a very early age, so ill stick to that thank you very much) 

The snorkel test.

1.. Don a snorkel attached to a mask attached to a 2 litre upside dan bottle with the bottom cut off.

2.  Sit in front of everyone and hope they put something nice in (You know, something YOU have asked for)

3.  Drown in a pool of foam and froth that inevitably comes through

Well i forwent step three and step two was ignored by Mark. He emptied two cans of KEO (its terrible lager) and a small bottle of what i can only describe as sweet fire into the bottle. Now the fact that the seal around the mask restricts your breathing through the nose (I mean STOPS you breathing through your nose) and all you have is a mouth full of snorkel gushing lager and crap into your gullet i boxed clever and pretended to be scratching my nose, thus breaking the seal allowing me to breath!!!! I really wanted to puke, but the ‘Ferraro Roche’ came out and all was well. Now I’m a fully fledged DM (well i am when PADI sends my number through. So they gave me the day off.

Today i have realised that Paphos is slowly becoming ‘Bothal Cottages’ (Now anyone familiar with Ashington (Where I’m from) will understand the intonation….Elephants graveyard)) the average age has dramatically shot up to 70!!!! the people here are white not because that haven’t gout a suntan, they are white because the pigmentation genes they were borne with have died of old age. They only get a bit of colour if the temperature falls enough to give them hypothermia!!!! I walked along to the store behind one elderly couple and all she was saying was that ‘Because of their TRANSACTIONS…..Blah Blah Blah’ She was too posh to say ‘the money we’ve spent’. It did make me chuckle. I watched one old girl happily smile to the waitress as she was handed a home made pizza, then as soon as she walked away, the old bugger whined to her husband that the tomatoes were not of the same standard as in the UK. For about five minutes she prodded and poked and clucked about the meal until her husband said something along the lines of ‘shut up you arse, you ordered it so eat it’, again i chuckled.

Ill sign off now as I’m due to be a taxi shortly, and i still have a thing or two to do. My sister is here soon so i best get some cleaning and washing done. AND its my brother Ian’s birthday today, so many happy returns to him. 

For all my friends and family (I hope you are all where you want to be) X