...why do it.

So yet another weekend goes by.
Another weekend too fast.
Another weekend spent surrounded by happy, grinning kids, friends & new associates..
Could be worse I suppose.

So why do it. Why spend all me spare time teaching kids to sail & adults to eventually become instructors ?

In what is ever increasingly becoming a second job. (Without a second pay packet I might add).
I took a group of adults through the third day of thier sailing course on Saterday.
Ok it was a bit windy, but no problem at all. It was a little rainy, but you expect to get a little wet. It was a little overcast, but hey. Oh. Wait. Where the hell did that huge black cloud come from! ?
When were hit by a force eight squall it appeared out of no where, and I mean fast. One minute not there, the next upon us & raging.
Further upwind this leveled the fleet of childrens boats on the broad in an instant. Every one capsized within ten seconds minimum. Without exception. Looked odd them all sitting on top of thier boats.
The two ladies in the boat with me were unaware of the potential hazard this sudden onslaught had brought upon us & were a little reluctant when I politely sugested I should take hold of the controls.
As I did the full force hit us & I can only say we took off.
Its very, very rare you feel acceleration in a sailing dinghy, this was a rare occation.
I am still genuinely amazed this did not tear the rig off of the boat.
What did happen is that I got caught, no time to turn and had to go with it. The next 30 or so seconds I can only describe it as like driving a large 4X4 vehicle through a deep puddle. I could not see much through the ensuing wall of spray & water as we skimmed across the water.

All was fine, I found a reletive calm spot in the lee of the shore & the world slowed down to thinking speed again.

Now what made this special for me was, (bear in mind thes two ladies, in thier 40's had only stepped in a boat three weekend previously), they sat laughting out loud, prim an correctly in their crewing positions & said to me "that was fun , can we go round and do it again?".

Im glad they had faith in me.

As quickly as it came it went.
40 seconds, possible.

How can fourty seconds make your day?.

So why do it, for moments like this.

...the Mother in law.

erm,

,err....

oh.

oooo, ah.

Sorry. Brain work not good now. Week end much big hard. Sort out soonly.
Bleh !

...Crown green bowls.

For those of you who don't know your sixteenth century history then shame on you.
For those of you who do, then you are geeky , just like me.


10 other great moments in history.

1) AD 1066, after a bit of rough & tumble, the English invite the French to stay for a bit.
2) AD 1492 Christopher Columbus gets a bit lost & has to stop off at McDonnalds to ask directions.
3) AD 1776 July 4, England celebrates it's 'independence day' as it gives away a troublesome little colony.
4) AD 1896 Alexanda Graham Bell gets very bored of not having full internet access, so decideds to get the ball rolling.
5) AD 1908, Henry Ford comes up with a great idea to get rid of all that black paint in his garden shed.
6) AD 1912 April 15, HMS Titanic. The last bridge command was Captain Smiths' communication to the Galley "No I said make the ships supper, NOT SCUPPER !"
7) AD 1940 Dunkirk France. The English decide to go home and have a little think about what to do next.
8) AD 1963 November 22, JFK comes up with a wizzer of a publicity stunt that goes a bit awry.
9) AD 1969 April, Buzz, Neil & the boys walk on the film set to fake the first moon landings.
10) AD 1977 Elvis gets a nose job, fakes his death, changes his name to Jenifer & disappears to Belgium.

...bear knuckle fighting.

To Denzil the squared circle suddenly became very small.

10 things not to do around a bear.

1) Sleep with his girlfriend. ( This includes Yogis' girl Suzie Bear, no matter how sexy she is.)
2) Poke them with sticks or try to put things in them.
3) Show them the real meaning of Pooh sticks. ( This applies to Pooh Bear alone ).
4) Out stare his 'Hard stare' ( This applies to Paddington Bear alone ).
5) Pretend to be a Salmon returning to your spawning grounds.
6) Dress in a rangers suit & try to steal his 'pic-a-nik' basket ( This applies to Yogi alone )
7) Engage one in philisophical debate & try Insinuate that 'Gentle Ben' was in fact batting for the other side.
8) Invite him to tea, & then show him your trophey room.
9) Suggest he is mearly a 'side kick' with 'no intrinsic comic value' other than a 'stooge' for the all together bigger star of the show ( This applies to Boo Boo alone ).
10) Break into thier home , smash thier furniture , eat thier porridge & wreck thier beds while they are out for a quiet morning constitutional.
11) Put in an eleventh item & pretend they can't count.

...being a bit of a girl.

Glenda breaks a nail.

...water closets.

Brian knew it was strictly against the rules, but the kid was never gonna sleep and he couldn't hold himself any longer.

Brians' singular reason for crossing that closet boundry was the immediate urgency to micturate.
In other words, coming out was a piss of peace.

...awkward date moments #101

Not only has a lot of water gone under the bridge this weekend, I feel as if I have built the blood bridge as well.

The weekend consisted of.

1) Re-arrange a sail store (approx 10 suits of sails to be re-sorted , checked, mended)
2) Build a 3 meter by 5 meter floating pontoon (While on the water)
3) Traveling - approx 120 miles.
4) Long healthy walk - approx 4 hours going nowhere.
5) Make a new rudder foil. to replace a missing one.
6) Meet members of my home towns Flickr group & attend local festival armed with cameras.
7) Sort our the days photos. (& whine for an hour because my lens is buggered)
8) Somehow I drew a cartoon amongst this lot, then freted because it's not what I wanted it to be.

This may sound a trivial list , but 2 and 6 were designed and executed on the fly by someone who's not a carpenter.

Breakfast (Erm...)
Lunches (1),
dinners (1) ,
cups of tea (dangerously few)
Sleep (Supprisingly little)

As a consequence I am too tired to blog & have nothing tangible to say.












,bugger I just blogged !.

...roadkill

I was going to go with "Clarissa was blessed with ESP, she could sense this was going to sting a bit"

,but Ive not got much to say for my self tonight , so if anyone would like to suggest a caption I will add the best one.

...Dougs' life.

Every one was a critic,
To Doug his yapping and snarling was his art,
un-appretiated, Doug was prepared to suffer for his art.









,But was he prepared for Tish?.

...Dave of the deep

People who point out your mistakes to others, don't you just love 'em.

The value of hindsight viewed from a remote location is a quality I find truely endearing in a person, especially when mistakes are made because the commentator was too lazy to do the work in the first place.

I have a saying, "He who does nothing, Makes no mistakes."

So I learn from all my mistakes & leave the commentators to still be arses.

Such is the life of an engineer.