My Fifty First Week as a Budding Author 

Christmas is a sad time of year for us freelancers. We sit in our sheds jealously following the tweets and facebook updates of our properly employed friends and their office parties. Mournfully we look to the phonebox outside of the house where our office do will be held and wonder just how on earth we are going to manage to get off with ourself after Babycham number 6. Walking into town earlier in the week I stared jealously at all of the pavement pizzas, signatures of a wild night out on the town.

Fortunately I didn’t burn all of my bridges after leaving my proper job. I am still a card carrying member of the Swindon Thursday Night ex-jugglers society. A motley crew of ageing gentlemen who have retired from throwing things in the air preferring to meet weekly and imbibe alcohol instead. Basically we’re a support group for geeky middle aged men who struggle to admit that they have a penchant for Scalectrix and sideburns.

The Thursday night crew have a number of traditions that are religiously maintained. We only ever meet in pubs that serve ”proper” beer. We often purchase crisps to accompany our pints, but never Ready Salted. We debate a huge range of subjects each week ranging from cycling to cycling and every year in the week before Christmas we meet up for a curry.

This year was no exception and on Thursday I sat in the Jewel in the Crown surrounded by my old friends, and I mean old as most of them are knocking on the door of fifty. But whilst we all are now forced to get up in the middle of the night for a wee, we’re young at heart. As I listened to the reminiscing and troughed curry I reflected upon the experiences that the ten of us had shared over the years. The birth of our children, the death of close relatives and Hugh’s willy surgery along with the graphic photos that he had emailed to each one of us.

However, there is one Thursday boys experience that requires documenting when three of us slipped briefly into a watery grave and almost didn’t return.

Another of our traditions is the “annual experience” where we kid ourselves that we’re not as old as we think by doing something mildly exciting. These experiences have included mountain climbing, mountain biking, white water rafting, paintballing and surfing usually interspersed with beer. One fatal year Rick suggested that we have a go at coasteering, jumping into the sea wearing wetsuits and life jackets, what could possibly go wrong?

I pondered this as we stood like a troupe of aged penguins in a Welsh car park but our guides seemed jovial, reassuring us that we’d have a great time..but don’t forget your helmets. For some reason they made us wear shorts over our wetsuits as well. I’d chosen my best mountain biking baggies for that “do not approach this man he’s clearly disturbed” look.We were then led from the car park to the Irish Sea.

The safety briefing was exactly that, brief. Basically if we got into any kind of trouble we had to raise our arm in the air and our guides would come to the rescue, but we wouldn’t need to do this as coasteering is perfectly safe. Guide number one climbed down to a watery gully jumped into the sea and motioned for two of us to follow. Steve and Rick obliged. It looked relatively harmless as the two of them bobbed about in the waves so I decided to take the plunge and dived in after them.

I think I managed to surface briefly, I can’t be sure as suddenly all I knew was water. I appeared to be under an awful lot of it being thrown around as if inside a Dave sized washing machine. This started out as a novel experience, all part of the coasteering lark, but quickly morphed into blind panic as I realised that I wasn’t about to surface any time soon. I was completely and utterly disorientated in my attempts to kick and thrash my way out. There were no points of reference to tell me which way was up and the water was so rough that bubbles were moving in all directions.

My helmet hit rock and the penny dropped, I’d been sucked under water and into a cave. This was it. Dave consigned to Davy Jones locker. Time to die. It is no exaggeration to state that I truly believed my number was up. I’d not had time to take a proper breath and really needed to suck some air in. I hit the rock again and could see no other option, I was stuck in this cave and the hard coded breathing reflex was too strong to fight. It was a profound moment that will stay with me forever when I accepted that this was the moment I was going to die.

You read about life flashing before you, maybe it does when you snuff it properly. I’m not looking forward to this as I’ll have to see some of my haircuts from the eighties and relive the moment when I poo’d myself getting ready for school. In my case it was as if a question that had been troubling me for years was finally answered. So THIS is how I’m going to die, I’d always thought it would be some tragic garage based accident involving power tools and a hammer.

I opened my mouth and sucked hard, air flowed into my lungs, I’d surfaced. I had no idea where I was and remembered the safety briefing shooting my arm in the air. I looked left and saw Rick with his arm in the air to my right was Steve with his arm in the air. Ropes were thrown and the three of us were dragged from the sea closely followed by guide number one who was looking pretty unhappy as well.

The whole group was visibly shocked. Apparently a freak wave had swept into the gully and held us under in its grip. Our friends had gone from laughter to panic as the seconds had ticked by whilst we remained under. Nobody was sure of the timings but we reckoned 30-45 seconds which may seem trivial but is hours when you’ve not had the chance to take a proper breath. The swell had knocked me sideways into the rocks thus explaining my perception of a cave roof. I must have made things worse by trying to swim my way out as I’d been going sideways rather than up. 

Steve and Rick had experienced similar panic. All three of us affirmed that we’d believed the end was nigh. Our guides attempted to diffuse the situation by stating that they weren’t really worried and it had all been under control, one of them attempted to laugh it all off. Their eyes told a different story, they’d nearly lost three clients plus a guide and they knew it. The sea had it’s final say with me by dishing out a comprehensive debagging. My shorts had been ripped off by the wave and were making their way to Ireland. I still wonder whether the Irish coastguard has called off a fruitless search for a coastal mountain biker riding round in his pants.

We were rapidly shuffled away to a safer bit of coast and spent the remainder of the day throwing ourselves off rocks without incident. Later when we peeled ourselves out of the wetsuits the damage became apparent. Steve, Rick and I were a fine tapestry of cuts and bruises we’d taken a real battering under the water. Jokingly I asked guide number two for the phone number of Claims Direct, he laughed but his eyes went all funny again.

Writing this has proved therapeutic in a number of ways. It’s allowed me to come to terms with a near death experience and morbidly realise that when it does come I think I’ll be OK with it, as long as it doesn’t involve crabs or dentistry. I’ve realised that I don’t miss the office party as I’ll always have the Thursday night boys curry but most importantly it has distracted me for an hour from actually writing the bloody book.

I’ve managed over 13,000 words in the last few days but they have been hard won especially with a wandering mind such as mine. Banging out some inane waffle about coasteering keeps the mind fresh. On that note, I think it’s time for me to log off and spend some quality Christmas time with my lovely wife and kids. So here’s wishing my reader a great Christmas and Happy New Year and if Santa delivers an experience voucher labelled”Coasteering”, you know what to do.

Dave

23rd December 2011

WEEK FIFTY TWO>>>>>>>>>>