loquitohermoso

In life, it’s all about peaks and troughs. The peak in this case was having both night shifts off [although writing this it’s suddenly occurred to me that I’ve therefore missed out on fifty quid’s worth of shift allowance…trough] The [second] trough was having to drag my arse to Bristol Magistrates Court for a 2 year old case, with a defendant unwilling to accept their fate despite significant evidence to the contrary and an ambitious line of defence.

So there we are, six officers, two healthcare assistants, sitting in limbo, all for a drug driving case, well…three of them. Three! Can’t we just take a plea on one? As the morning dragged on, I became increasingly despondent about my hopes of actually getting away in the evening, however a hallelujah moment suddenly popped up at 10-to-lunchtime when suddenly me and my oppo were called up. Out of court by half 1, I’ll have that. Just the schlep back home, fire up the van and gone.

Destination for the night was the Halfway House near Wareham. I figured this was pretty close to the start of the coast path so I could get up early and get a good session in before going across to Poole later that evening.

As I left home around 4:30 I ruminated on how nice it was actually sitting in a bit of traffic, reassuring myself that actually the constant tide of the unfortunate and the unwise that I deal with at work is not representative of wider society, and that actually the 80% are here, in this traffic, generally functioning in life and getting themselves to work.

I felt briefly better about the world until yet again, my faith in humanity was again dented by a homicidal driver in a 44 tonne cattle truck who spent nearly the entire journey from Taunton to Yeovil around 2 feet off my bumper, angrily imploring that I somehow leapfrog my 30 year old camper van over the line of traffic that we were plodding along in.

As I arrived at the Halfway House it looked like a very decent little pub, with a 10/10 perfectly flat expanse of gravel to park on. and it was reassuring to see a menu with only around 10 items on. I have a real issue with choice and actually if you present me with fewer nice choices it’s just easier. Don’t bamboozle me. Peak.

As it was I went for a buttermilk chicken burger with blue cheese sauce, ultimately the blue cheese was the clincher. I chose to eat outside because why not? We’re all continental here. And very lovely it was too, washed down with a couple of pints of Badger… comfortingly close to home since that’s the brewery of our local lifeboat pub. Naturally, in my very first bite of burger I put my trousers out of commission for the trip with a mighty glob of blue cheese. Trough.

It was nice to see, as I moved inside for my second and final pint of the day, the erstwhile cycling gents on the other table having a very earnest discussion about politics again…we’re back to the functioning people versus fuckwits thing. Peak.

I retired to the van for what I hoped to be an early night however I heard what sounded initially like a woodpecker however then realised it was small artillery fire from the ranges just over the hill. Oh dear. Maybe all of the tank parking places, warning signs and pictures of tanks on the road up here might have been a clue. Trough.

Not to worry though, entirely contrary to my lovely partner who wakes up if a sparrow farts in the next town, my 20 plus years of night shifts, stupid shifts, 18 hour shifts followed by four hours sleep followed by another 18 hour shift, have left me utterly bombproof with regards to sleep. I get it in whenever needed anywhere whatever the issue or the sound so it’s all good. Immediately GCS 3 until sunrise. Peak.

The next morning my alarm barked into life at seven. This was probably somewhat optimistic and actually it was one of those mornings where I just let it go on snooze again and again and again happily drifting off to and back from sleep.

Motorhomes are much like tents… the rain on the roof quite often sounds far worse than it is, but this really wasn’t inspiring me to get up and out on a very open section of coast path between Sandbanks and Swanage. But eventually, get up I did, sorted my things out, put the van into gear and pottered down the road to Shell Bay, finding the car park very empty…probably a sign of things to come.

From there it was straight onto the beach. A lovely walk really, a bit tiring on the soft bits but fresh and invigorating. Walks like this really allow me to unwind my mind, and not in a particularly profound manner, in a kind of “working out the solutions to obscure problems manner” but it all helps. Why does the inside of a crab look like that?

There’s a wonderful sense of openness down here that you don’t really get with the northern coast. Exmoor is lovely but it doesn’t have quite the same vast expansive beaches. It’s all crags and coves. Both are nice, but it’s nice to have a change. Dorset beaches are classic posh person seasides… but not in the slightly brash new money way that you get around some of Cornwall, more the calm comforting old money land of paste sandwiches and Enid Blyton.

Maybe I had a good stomp on, or maybe this section of path just isn’t very challenging, but I realised my time estimates were woefully pessimistic and within an hour or so I was already rounding Old Harry and steaming towards Swanage.

I am increasingly becoming one of those people who avoid all civilisation where possible, and I find it uniformly disappointing when you have to re-enter the world after a lovely float along cliffs. Swanage immediately hacked me off with a complete ban on any form of ‘camping-car’ parking anywhere on the seafront, and even more so when I looked at the parking meters.

FOUR POUNDS SIXTY an hour.

And then you get to the promenade to be greeted with this gaudy festival of prohibitions. Still, on the plus side I absolutely love the fact they’ve revived the concept of beach huts, and it really does seem that money is being spent. You’d hope so, with the parking charges. And indeed the enthusiastic kayak hire fee of a tenner per half hour.

I trudged into town, by this point slightly hangry and definitely a bit drenched after some mammoth showers. One hour until my bus. This is a place where people retire to in order to be grumpy and scowl a lot. Therefore I popped into the Cornish bakery, grabbed a slightly wacky flavoured pasty, because the lovely Filipino chap behind the counter gave it the thumbs up, and beat a retreat to the edge of town for my bus.

As one of the Jurassic Coasters, this was partially open topped. Great on a sunny day. The soaked seats and bits of tree strewn around the open bit told me this probably wasn’t a great idea. But it wasn’t actually raining and the inside bit was basically full, so…

Back to the van at Shell Bay for a quick change and warm-up, and then ferry over to Poole. I was definitely going to take the ferry anyway, but it was heartening to calculate that this basically worked out the same as the extra fuel if I’d taken the long way round… and was far more fun.

I like driving up through Sandbanks and the leafier corners of Poole, ogling the big houses. I was hoping to pop into Go Outdoors for some new boots, but this ended up being a ridiculous mission, thwarted by surprise car park height barriers and scammy ANPR car parks, in the end I simply gave up and chugged to the RNLI College.

I was here for my second round of the Crew Emergency Procedures course… a rolling 5 year requalification that’s not really been chased up yet, but sometimes it’s nice to get ahead of the curve.

Accommodation is provided at the College, and it’s always a nice stay with great, plentiful food. This time I even managed to hit the gym, wracked with guilt about a few days absence after a really consistent 7 months of training.

CEP is a great course. Very practical, and loads of it in the Sea Survival Centre’s pool, which can replicate waves, weather, darkness, spray, thunder… the whole ticket. We learn how to right capsized boats, get back on board, restart engines…and getting under the boat to rescue colleagues if needed. I had a right wobble last time getting stuck under the smaller boat, so having a smooth ride this time was a definite peak.

The sunsets at Poole are the best. And this fitted really nicely into a set of rest days, turning a somewhat under-occupied trio of midweek days off into a mini break with a purpose.

I’m not sure about the social side. Sometimes it’s best to come down with a couple from your station, because lifeboat crews can all be a little tribal at times. Maybe I’m just not that into people any more. Definitely I don’t really do big groups. Besides, I was more than happy with 3 nights of good food and actual relaxation in the evenings.

The food really does live up to expectations, plentiful and delicious. A bit of a random selection this week though…curry two nights in a row pushing it somewhat, if you didn’t like curry.

I was heartened though by my ability to make good choices…rather than heading for the pub at 3.30 having finished in the pool I headed to the gym for an hour. I never said I could day drink anyway.

I was joined by Mark on the Friday night. Plan for the Saturday was to get the ferry to Brownsea Island but the weather was so uninspiring that we sacked it off for another day and had a mooch on the Quay instead.

Lunch in Poundbury on the way home, with dear old Hetty plonked right in the middle of the Queen Mother’s square. I don’t really know what to make of Poundbury, it all feels a bit dystopian but also quite pleasant. A kind of cream ribbed cricket jumper guilty pleasure.

A really very pleasant lunch in the Hall and Woodhouse pub on the square, impressive for its attention to architectural detail… it’s nice to see a bit of thought in design, and a subtle form of ‘old looking new’

Lunch was ever-so-slightly marred by a noisy child on a nearby table, generally making a racket and being a bit shouty, banging his chair. I may well have been on the cusp of saying something, or at the very least engaging in a good British tut and eye roll. And then I took a closer look and noticed his very distinctive almond eyes. Determined not to have an Inbetweeners moment, or at the very least appear on Poundbury Mums, I smiled and we left. Phew.

A good weekend. But going back to work on a Bank Holiday Sunday is cruel and unusual.