Thing for Water
The past three days I can be pretty sure that I have emotionally flipped from one extreme to the other ... and as far as Friday is concerned, flipped is the right word.
I am generally an easy guy to get on with: especially if you don't rely on me to keep the conversation going as I have more of a gift-of-the-vacant than a gift-of-the-gab. Basically, if someone is friendly with me, then I'm friendly in return; which goes some way to explaining why I spent 1.5 hours nodding at Tring Betty whilst she gave me her life history.
Some people, on the other hand, push that friendliness to a point where even courtesy becomes very hard work. One of our customer's staff members is just such a person, a bully who throws her weight around, swears profusely in front of staff, suppliers and management, and who has a hissy-fit when she doesn't get her own way. She also has far too strong a handshake for a lady.
We don't like her.
Unfortunately for me, I am right in the centre of her radar with her missiles pouring down around me. Her current tactic: to publicly humiliate me via a multi-contact email, rather than actually talk to me to find out what is what.
It was one such email that I received on Friday and it was the final straw. I finally did what I had been on the verge of doing on too many occasions previously: I walked out. If I hadn't, she would have received much more of a raw response than the one I finally sent a lot later.
I don't know what the weather was like around your way on Friday but in Tring it was like someone on high was trying to fill a swimming pool. Shame I didn't have my trunks. Or my jacket, for that matter: it was still slung over the back of my chair, but I didn't care. I needed cooling down.
I think I only walked a couple of miles as it turned out I was gone from the office for around forty minutes, but by the time I got back I was in a reasonably calm state and I looked like I had just leapt into a swimming pool. Oh well, it was only water. Its not as if I wouldn't dry out. Surprisingly though, I was still damp when I finally left the office in the late evening hours.
Thankfully, the rest of the weekend turned out to be far more therapeutic with Saturday returning me to those days of old where I could chill out, relax and read a book. Geez, its been so long!!
I have a whole host of books that still need reading, some of which were bought over three years ago, so I guess I shouldn't really have bought Odd Hours when I saw it in the supermarket the other week, but I am a fan of Odd (where do you think my name came from?!), so I was eager to see what happened to him next.
Generally, it was a good read and it kept me turning the pages, but I would have to agree with the comments on Amazon that it didn't have the same depth as the original and I can't help feeling that some of the author's personal feelings were on display as he had Odd commenting on things in a way that seemed totally out of character: and with some of the real-life events mentioned in it being so recent, its hard not to feel as though Mr Koontz didn't put a lot of effort into this one!!
Still, I enjoyed it and it was a nice distraction considering the rest of the week.
Today, the weekend was made even better through the benefits of a little retail therapy!
As you know, ordering dive kit recently has been something of an arduous task. With this in mind, and with another dive planned for the 19/20th of July, I decided I would do some shopping the old-fashioned way and visit an actual store. Surprisingly, there are very few dive stores open on a Sunday but I did manage to find one in Stansted called 2Dive4.
So, cash in hand, I went a-wandering to see if I could actually get the kit I needed: specifically ScubaPro wetsuit, weights, gloves, boots, hood and shorty. Unfortunately, they didn't have the 7mm version of the suit that I really wanted but they did have the 5mm version, which I tried on.
This is where I hand out a piece of advice based on personal experience: when trying on a wetsuit, check it for fit, get it off and then talk to the store staff. I swear I lost over a litre of water in the ten minutes I was wearing the thing whilst getting advice on best fit.
My wallet is now several hundred pounds lighter and my dive box is now over twenty pounds heavier. Not cheap, this diving lark...
I am generally an easy guy to get on with: especially if you don't rely on me to keep the conversation going as I have more of a gift-of-the-vacant than a gift-of-the-gab. Basically, if someone is friendly with me, then I'm friendly in return; which goes some way to explaining why I spent 1.5 hours nodding at Tring Betty whilst she gave me her life history.
Some people, on the other hand, push that friendliness to a point where even courtesy becomes very hard work. One of our customer's staff members is just such a person, a bully who throws her weight around, swears profusely in front of staff, suppliers and management, and who has a hissy-fit when she doesn't get her own way. She also has far too strong a handshake for a lady.
We don't like her.
Unfortunately for me, I am right in the centre of her radar with her missiles pouring down around me. Her current tactic: to publicly humiliate me via a multi-contact email, rather than actually talk to me to find out what is what.
It was one such email that I received on Friday and it was the final straw. I finally did what I had been on the verge of doing on too many occasions previously: I walked out. If I hadn't, she would have received much more of a raw response than the one I finally sent a lot later.
I don't know what the weather was like around your way on Friday but in Tring it was like someone on high was trying to fill a swimming pool. Shame I didn't have my trunks. Or my jacket, for that matter: it was still slung over the back of my chair, but I didn't care. I needed cooling down.
I think I only walked a couple of miles as it turned out I was gone from the office for around forty minutes, but by the time I got back I was in a reasonably calm state and I looked like I had just leapt into a swimming pool. Oh well, it was only water. Its not as if I wouldn't dry out. Surprisingly though, I was still damp when I finally left the office in the late evening hours.
Thankfully, the rest of the weekend turned out to be far more therapeutic with Saturday returning me to those days of old where I could chill out, relax and read a book. Geez, its been so long!!
I have a whole host of books that still need reading, some of which were bought over three years ago, so I guess I shouldn't really have bought Odd Hours when I saw it in the supermarket the other week, but I am a fan of Odd (where do you think my name came from?!), so I was eager to see what happened to him next.
Generally, it was a good read and it kept me turning the pages, but I would have to agree with the comments on Amazon that it didn't have the same depth as the original and I can't help feeling that some of the author's personal feelings were on display as he had Odd commenting on things in a way that seemed totally out of character: and with some of the real-life events mentioned in it being so recent, its hard not to feel as though Mr Koontz didn't put a lot of effort into this one!!
Still, I enjoyed it and it was a nice distraction considering the rest of the week.
Today, the weekend was made even better through the benefits of a little retail therapy!
As you know, ordering dive kit recently has been something of an arduous task. With this in mind, and with another dive planned for the 19/20th of July, I decided I would do some shopping the old-fashioned way and visit an actual store. Surprisingly, there are very few dive stores open on a Sunday but I did manage to find one in Stansted called 2Dive4.
So, cash in hand, I went a-wandering to see if I could actually get the kit I needed: specifically ScubaPro wetsuit, weights, gloves, boots, hood and shorty. Unfortunately, they didn't have the 7mm version of the suit that I really wanted but they did have the 5mm version, which I tried on.
This is where I hand out a piece of advice based on personal experience: when trying on a wetsuit, check it for fit, get it off and then talk to the store staff. I swear I lost over a litre of water in the ten minutes I was wearing the thing whilst getting advice on best fit.
My wallet is now several hundred pounds lighter and my dive box is now over twenty pounds heavier. Not cheap, this diving lark...
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