First real snow

When the alarm went off this morning we both lay there trying to wake up, and then the voice on the radio said "wake up everyone, it snowed last night!" We both jumped up and looked out the window and everything was white and still. I saw it snow about a year ago, but that only lasted a couple of minutes and melted within half an hour. This was different, a carpet that covered everything.

The snow was so soft and fresh, barely touched by footprints when we left the house at 7am. On the train trip in I didn't even need a paper as the snow everywhere was amazing. Once in London, the roads and paths were covered in slush, but the snow still covered everything else. It was a great sight to start the day!

Our new suits

Diving again on Sunday. The sun was out, and the water was cold. The only thing of interest we saw was a bird that kept down to us when we were about 6m down and 'flying' around us. I've never seen anything like that before, you could see the air trapped around it's feathers making it look like it had quicksilver all over it.

Both dives we mainly concentrated on getting used to the dry suits. It really feels like you are learning to dive all over again, and on the first dive i spent 10mins just trying to sort out my bouyancy, but it is gradually getting better.

Bah Humbug

Well, it's over and done with for another year. I've just spent three days at Sarah's mum's house doing nothing but eat, drink and sleep. I know Christmas is meant to be festive time but let me point out a few facts about my Christmas -

• there was nothing on TV, despite the 999 channels on SkyTV
• it was cold but not cold enough to snow
• the sky was grey and it was dark by 4:30pm
• opening presents is set to a timetable due to some weird ass family tradition - presents from friends after breakfast, presents from family after lunch
• despite hinting all year, I saw another boxing day without a motorbike

Having said that, the food was really good, we found a bottle of Jim Beam Black Label and some reallllly old dark rum in the depths of the grog cabinet, and you sleep a lot more peacefully when there is an absence of garbage trucks or pizza delivery guys . And I got some cool pressies (eventually)....

We both miss you all and hope you had a fantastic Christmas.

Disclaimer: If you are reading this Carina, I really did enjoy myself.

Wet drysuits

On Saturday we finally went diving in the drysuits. I wasn't sure we were going to make it as we went ice-skating at a 10:00pm session on Friday night, but we managed to get up early, the sun was out, and the weatherman promised there would be temperatures of 10-12 degrees throughout the day.

When we arrived it must have taken us about an hour and a half to actually get in the water.

I thought all our equipment had been correctly adjusted to use with the drysuits, but I was wrong. It's really infuriating when you have to pull every hose off your first stage and put them on the other way around so that all the hoses reach where they are meant to reach. About an hour later we actually got into the drysuits, but then had to put the rest of the kit on. You really feel like an amateur when working with new gear, with my usual kit I reckon I could put it on blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back, but this was totally foreign to me. So many unexpected difficulties - restricted movement due to the thickness and newness of the drysuit; 5mm gloves that are difficult to put on and take off, and are so thick you can't feel what you are doing through them; hoses that need to be attached to the drysuit but end up somewhere behind your head; hoses that just get tangled up and nearly strangle you; fins that don't fit over the drysuit boots; fools that are so preoccupied with what their wife is doing that they neglect to turn their own air on.....

Finally we got into the water for a weight check. Five minutes later we're out of the water to get more weight (that's a total of 28 pounds folks!), trying to avoid the killer swan patrolling the lake. Did you know that swans hiss? Vicious things!

The other vicious thing was the harassment from the locals who thought it hysterical that it had taken us so long to get into the water, only to be out again within minutes.

Back in the water, submerge, float.... Being totally enveloped by water but only feeling it around your face is a very weird sensation, it takes a couple of minutes to get used to. But let me tell you how warm it is.... Not very! I think we both expected it to be to warm in the suits as it is a sealed environment encasing your body, and one would assume that your body would warm this space up even if the surrounding water is 10 degrees. I’m not saying I was cold, I just thought I would be warm. Despite this I think the suits are a great investment, it is just going to take a few dives to get used to them.

Dry.......not only in name

No, we still haven't dived in the drysuits. It's been either runny noses or a few drinks followed by a curry at 10:30pm that have stopped us from diving. The closest the suits have come to water is when steam escapes the shower in the morning. If you look closely below you can even se that one suit still has a tag on it!

I don't know why Sarah worries so much about having a curry and diving the next day - what happens in a drysuit usually stays in a drysuit.....

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Once upon a time there where three little pigs who went to live in Poland. One built a house of straw, one a house of sticks, and the last a house of bricks. Unfortunately for them, the big bad wolf knew that Polish workers were very cheap, so he hired a Polish builder to demolish the houses, a Polish hunter to catch and truss the pigs, and a Polish butcher to do what a butcher does. One little pig was minced up, had a few herbs added, and was turned into many varieties of delicious sausages. The second little piggy was salted and sliced up to become delicious ham and bacon. And the fattest little piggy was smoked and cut into chunks, schnitzels and steaks. How I wish i could be that big bad wolf.

We went to Krakow, Poland last weekend, and i must say the highlight of my weekend was the pork! I think i even managed to eat only meat for a whole day, well maybe a touch of cheese as well, possibly a bit of saurkraut. And it was all so cheap. The Poles definitely enjoy their meat, and unfortunately for Sarah, believe that vegetarian food is a meal in which the meat part of the dish is a smaller amount than the vegetable part.

We flew out Saturday morning, and after a stopover in Warsaw, arrived in Krakow about 5:00pm where it was already dark. after dumping our stuff at the hotel we followed the cobbled streets through the old town to the town square for the Christmas markets.

It was beautiful that first night, all the lights and decorations, the fog, drinking hot mulled wine while any exposed part of you is freezing. It wasn't till the next day we realised that the fog was actually pollution......

We walked the old part of town all the next day, exploring the castle, along the river bank, and through the Jewish quarter. A cafe here and there, and luckily for Sarah we found a real vegetarian restaurant - no meat anywhere!

All that walking meant we needed an afternoon nap, followed by a sauna, before retiring back to the Christmas market for a few more mulled wines, and then discovered the what we thought was honey vodka, but turned out to be just honey liqueur. Very yummy!

Sunday we visited the salt mines which were, surprisingly, spectacular. The salt is black until it is gound up, which is it when it turns white due to it's transparency. It is the oldest salt mine still operating in the world, and all the passages and rooms are carved into the salt, with a bit of wood here and there for support. One of the chambers has even been made into a cathedral, and there are statues and carvings everywhere. Even the tiles on the fl;oor are carved into the salt. At our lowest level we were 136m below the surface.

The city reminded me very much of the only other communist place i've been, Havana - dirty streets, pollution, and infrastructure that hasn't been modernised since the 60s. And like Havana, they love to drive old cars.

Something else i managed to do while in Poland, was to finally make it to the top of Mount Kosciuszko.