Marcus D. Hanwell's Blog

I was hoping to get some work done over the bank holiday weekend but instead we just haven't stopped at all since Friday evening and I haven't gotten any work done until this morning! Started off going out for a curry with Louise and some friends from work along with their partners. It was a really nice curry but the waiter made me laugh as he had put mad hot next to my order and I had found it enjoyable but far from mad hot Saw a few guys from the magnetics group in the pub before we left and realised how rarely I make it out these days - they had redecorated and refurbished the bar without me even noticing any of the work going off...

Saturday morning it was over to Tigerdive early to help out with my first open water course as a trainee divemaster. It was good fun but a really long day. I think I got there at 8:30 and wasn't home until just before 21:00. It was quite a small group, with only four students in the end but it was still enjoyable and an opportunity to learn more about being a divemaster in a teaching assistant role.

Then straight off to town for a few drinks with some old friends I haven't seen since school. They met up for a meal at 19:00 but I knew I probably wouldn't make it in until later. It was strange seeing them after so many years and I hope we manage to stay in touch a little more in future. I remember my days at All Saints quite fondly on the whole.

I got a lay in on Sunday and then we went off to visit Louise's family at her sisters for the weekly coffee morning. After that we went shopping at CCC and Decathlon for some camping supplies. It was good fun but I took ages deciding between three tents. We had the two man fold out, the three man dome tent and the three man tunnel tent.

After much deliberation I decided on the three man tunnel tent because Louise liked it more and I thought a little extra space would be good. Hopefully it will be a decent tent. I will be using it up at Capernwray this weekend along with some of the other goodies we got. I think we will be borrowing Louise's parents bigger tent when we camp up at St Abbs the weekend after. In the afternoon I went to help out with the open water course again. Didn't get home until late an then just collapsed on the sofa and had a bite to eat.

Sunday day I spent reorganising my office and tidying up to make the perfect thesis station as I really need to accelerate my thesis writing if I want to be finished by the end of the year. It looks pretty good now and it feels better having a change. Then some friends came round for dinner and stayed until quite late drinking some wine and Jamesons...

In the middle of all that Louise picked up our new used car - a really big Renault Megane Scenic. It is pretty nice although well used. It is one of the oldest cars I have ever driven (P reg) but has lots of space for diving and camping gear along with us and the dog. My dive box just slides into the boot which is great. Hopefully it will prove to be a reliable car - but we have only had it for a few days so far.

Best get back to writing that thesis - I have written all these words on here but none of them count towards my thesis I will work on a thesis-o-meter tonight to track my progress throughout the final months.

I am so busy at the moment! Went diving yesterday at Stoney Cove to do my deep specialty - it was really good to get away from it for a day. I have been doing data analysis all day today, and I was hoping to get more of my thesis written but so far haven't had time to get to that today. I haven't had much time for Gentoo development at all recently - hopefully things will improve a little once I have made some progress with my thesis write up. I can't believe it is mid-August already!!!

Back to the grind stone...

Well I did my first dives in open water as a trainee divemaster yesterday. I got to Capernwray at 9:00 and was helping out with the advanced course. I did three dives throughout the day (deep, wreck and search & recovery). It was quite good fun but the visibility was absolutely awful for most of the day. We also overran and I wasn't out of the water until 5:30 that evening (I was literally the last guy in the water). I was very tired and had worked hard.

Then came the most disappointing part of my whole day - despite talking to both the instructors about being assessed it turned out that neither of them could or would... I have to say it was very disappointing to have left home at 6:30, and to get back after 20:30 and not manage to get a single sign off as part of my trainee divemaster internship. I will be asking about the rules on this as there was a meeting recently about this and either I have misunderstood it or the instructors have.

Trying to take some positives away from the day I do have a better idea now of what is expected of me in my role as a trainee divemaster. I also feel that I fulfilled many of those roles and deserved an assessment. This has made me determined to get the situation clarified so that I do get properly assessed in future dives. I also got three more logged dives too.

I got my wreck specialty on Wednesday too, and should be doing the classroom element on the nitrox course on Saturday and my deep specialty at Stoney Cove on Sunday. After that I intend to avoid any further courses other than my divemaster internship until I have completed it. We will see how that goes...

Been so busy this week and haven't even had chance to sit down and write about Ireland until today! Louise and I had a really nice time out in Dublin. We met up with former dev Rob (tigger^) and his wife for a meal on the Friday night. Louise and Sarah started laughing at us when we started speaking about techie things and steered the conversation back to more important things like the sights of Dublin!

Louise and I went to the Jamsons distillery and the Guinness store house for their tours. I got myself a nice bottle of Jamesons 12 year old as a souvenir after sampling a few of their drinks. Saturday night we got invited to a small party with some friends of Rob, had a really nice time but found out just how hard a taxi can be to get in Dublin late at night!

The next day we had our big drive down to Cork. Found a nice pub along the way to get a little lunch at but most of Ireland seemed to be closed so we didn't do much else. Our hotel was pretty easy to find, but both the hotels we stayed in claimed to be in the city centre of Dublin and Cork respectively. Neither was even close - we must research these things more closely in future!

On our last day in Ireland we went to the Old Middleton Jamesons distillery to see if that one was nicer. We thought it was and enjoyed the tour more at this one. I did resist the urge to get any more souvenirs though Then we went to a zoo where they seem to let the animals roam about. Louise loves her zoos. I got some really nice pictures on my SLR (need to get the film developed) and Louise got some good ones on my little digital camera too. Had a beautiful meal at the hotel after trying to park in Cork and giving up after about 45 minutes of trying!

We would definitely go back to Ireland, but I would like to take in some of the west coast next time. I hear there is some amazing diving too so we would have to take the ferry next time as 10 kg is not a lot of dive gear on Ryanair! I will try to put up my photos as soon as I get chance.