Padding It Out.

How did I end up wearing 8 tops and 6 pairs of trousers on a transatlantic flight on the way back from Peru? Read on....

I queued up (knowing the weight limit was 25kg) and I put my big bag on the scale. It was 26kg. I was thinking SHIT, SHIT, SHIT be a nice person on the desk. This was with Air Transat. But then she saw I had a backpack on and asked me to put that on as well. I had totally packed out my backpack with the heaviest things (excluding liquids) like books and electronics because they never check hand luggage weight normally. After the bow and arrows too it was was 38kg or something stupid. She said that it would be about CAN$200 to pay the excess. My mind was racing. She was really nice and saying that I should ring my parents and use their credit cards to pay. Yeah like I am ringing my parents at 1am to ask for 100 pounds. I walked away with all my stuff and toyed with ringing someone for assistance but I knew I was on my own. I only had CAN$20 on me and I still wanted to buy food after going through security. I knew I needed to throw some stuff away. I went to the disabled toilet and sorted my stuff out until I had a small pile of stuff that I could afford to throw away. Then I layed myself up good and proper. 3 pairs of shorts and 3 pairs of trousers. Then I put on 5 t-shirts and 3 thick jumpers. Plus 2 scarves and a woolly hat. I was boiling and I could hardly walk but I walked back to the check-in desk. I ended up with a different woman. My big suitcase was now 20kg plus 2kg for the bow and arrows. She didnt care about my hand luggage. After it all went through and I had my ticket I went back to the toilet. My small pile of dispensable possessions were still there as I had left them (except I had an inkling someone had read my National Geographic whilst in there). I packed out my previously only half-full backpack but I had overspill. I had 2 plastic bags knocking around so I filled them up with wellies and hiking boots. My pockets were also bulging. This is how I went through security. The metal detector went off of course. But the metal zips were deep under the layers of trousers. The man was confused with the paddedness but I got through. As soon as the seatbelt sign went off on the plane I took most of the layers off and took up an entire overhead storage locker to myself what with the bags of boots, the huge backpack and piles of clothes. Shortly before the descent I got back into my layers. After picking up my luggage at London I got re-changed in the toilet there. Then I went and met my Dad in the arrivals area.

A rival for Stormguy?

As all who read this blog will know stormguy.com is the best place to view storms, lightning and tornado pictures and videos on the internet. But the BBC are starting to step up with lots more tornado videos and pictures. And many of the ones the BBC publish are British as well. I just wish they wouldn't describe tornadoes as 'freak weather'.

These are some of the best recent tornado videos from the BBC: Lancashire Tornado, Inside A Tornado and Florida Waterspouts.

Storming the Gates!

It happened to be the same day I had had my injections before I go to Peru. At about 4pm there was a suggestion that we go to the beach at Weston-Super-Mare. I hadn't been to Weston-Super-Mare before. Me, Jennie, Jamie and Izzy went there in Jennies car (it took 45 minutes). I was nearly falling asleep on the way as I had been up the whole night before. Anyway after a brief stop at ASDAs (Wal-Mart for overseas readers) in Weston-Super-Mare we made our way to the beach which is about 5 miles away. It was actually a beach called Sand Bay. When you get to the beach if the tide is out you can be a 15 minute walk to the sea. The beach actually has the 2nd longest tidal range in the world. It was a very nice day and the beach, although huge (a mile long maybe) was almost deserted maybe a couple of people walking dogs and so forth. We made a fire and roasted marshmallows and had a picnic and played games on the sand and so forth. Jennie hadn't seen a sunset before (she is from Devon so they are always a bit behind) so we stayed for the sunset (photos on Facebook now!). Although the fire was providing heat and light at 10:30pm we headed back to the car. We got in the car. We were all tired, dirty and chatty. We drove through the car park and got to the gate. It was closed. Locked? I jumped out to inspect. It was indeed locked. There was a padlock the size of my hand and a thick, heavy metal chain locking the gate. We walked over to the car park sign. It said it was closed at 9:30pm. We hadn't noticed that everybody else had left already. We rang the number for the council on the sign. They said that we would have to stay in there all night and were basically quite rude. Jamie and Jennie climbed over the gate (Jennie has a metal hip) and they went to the local pub to ask for advice. "the people last night who got locked in got a lift home and came back in the morning to collect their car" was the reply. Was there another way out? Huge stones were blocking a car getting onto the beach. The 2 girls sat in the car and said that we would have to sleep all night in the car. Jamie got on his mobile and called his friend for tips. Meanwhile I started picking the padlock with my leather punch on my penknife. I tried to pick it for half and hour to no avail. Jamie's friend on the phone suggested that we hit the padlock with rocks to try and break it. We tried that. It was very neolithic. There were a few bruised nails as a result! The whole time the girls were saying "just get back in the car and give up". I asked if they had any tools in the car. They said no. Then I asked if she had a spare wheel as they normally come with tools. She didn't know. I took everything out of the boot and took the cover off. The spare tyre was there and also a few tools including a jack and so forth. There was 1 tool that looked like a giant hook and eye thing. I think it was supposed to be some sort of tow-bar thing. Anyway I took it back to the padlock. My theory was that the leverage would break the padlock. I slid the long metal end through the padlock and started jumping up and down on the eye bit. The padlock was a big, heavy duty, chunky affair and I couldn't even tell which side the padlock opened. Anyway I kept trying. Nothing seemed to happen for ages. Jamie was still walking around the car park in the dark on his mobile. Suddenly there was a yell. I ran and Jamie was lying on the floor with his sock off. He had stepped on a 4-inch long rusty nail. It stopped bleeding fairly quickly but after looking at the nail in the headlights it was defiantly rusty and old and had gone deep. "If I kissed you perhaps my tetanus injection from earlier would help you" was my quip. But he needed to get to hospital really. I went back to the gate and tried for another 10 minutes. My entire body weight was on the eye bit. I was jumping up and down manically and worried about my testicles in case they banged onto the top of the gate. Then suddenly there was an almighty CRRUUNNCCH. I jumped off and inspected it. The metal loop was half broken! I waved and they hobbled/limped over. I got up again and gave it another few minutes of hardcore jumping. 82kg (I had been weighed at the doctors that day) of chocolate eclair power and the padlock snapped and the gate swung open. There were cheers. We all jumped into the car. I bandaged Jamie's foot whilst we looked for a hospital. I suggested we headed for Weston-Super-Mare as that's the nearest big town. By half luck and half design we arrived at the hospital. It was quite empty so in half and hour Jamie had had his tetanus. We made our way home but we were all so tired we got lost a bit and ended up in Bristol. We went under the Clifton Suspension Bridge and finally ended back at the campus at 2:45am.

The People of Bath

Thus far during my time in Bath I have noticed peculiar goings on in the course of my ramblings. These folk of the western shires (Wessex) have many quaint customs and habits which are noticeable to an outsider. They use words like 'lush' which means 'cool' and 'gertlush' which means 'very cool'. They begin sentences with " 'allo my luver" and throw in plenty of "arrhhhs". The children when playing tag call home, 'the den' or simply 'den'. But one major oddity (which was brought to my attention by my brother) is that even in the depths of winter Bathonian males wear shorts. They wear them at the bus stops, they wear them at the pubs and they wear them in the high street. Builders wear them and postmen wear them and students wear them. When its sleeting and the temperature is struggling to stay above zero. Many young people wear a Japanese clothing brand known as 'Superdry'. They venture all the way to Bristol to hunt and gather these garments while the rest of the English-speaking world looks on bemused.

If I discover anymore anthropological faux pas in Bath I shall kept thee updated.