CLIMBING LADDERS AND SLIDING DOWN POLES

Just realised I didn't write the promised entry about my adventures in Bournemouth (FIVE weeks ago now, I really need to get online more often). Bournemouth is a seaside town about two and a half hours from London, renowned for its long sandy beaches. Bournemouth is apparently also popular for stag/hens nights; three people at work told me that while they couldn't actually remember much about when they were there, they knew that it was fun. I headed down to the seaside to spend time with a fabulous friend I met in Vietnam. Because she's equally as paranoid about internet psychos as me, perhaps even more so if that's possible, I'll just call her R.

I arrived on a Friday and night and thankfully, we had a quiet night in. This had followed the almost endless procession of boozy nights that I wrote about in my last entry, so I was a bit knackered. Saturday we were racing around madly buying costumes and party decorations for a 30^th birthday party that evening. The theme was 1960s/1970s, and oddly we were able to buy brand new dresses right off the rack that matched the 60s theme perfectly. Fashion is weird.

The reason we were so pressed for time on Saturday is because we spent the middle part of the day at the local fire station. Here's the story: the previous weekend, R and the birthday girl had been walking home during the wee hours of the morning having imbibed one too many alcoholic concoctions and decided it would be a good idea to ring the intercom at the local fire station and invite the firemen along to the upcoming party. After undoubtedly providing amusement for the sober fire-chaps, the gals were invited over for a tour of the fire station the next weekend. So when I arrived, I became one of five giggling girlies buzzing the intercom at the fire station at lunch time.

It was very cool. I think there were about seven firemen there: tall, well-built, the usual deal. They were cooking up a barbecue and had some seriously gourmet salad and pasta dishes as well. The lunch time conversation was suitably ribald, as you would expect with five single gals sitting around a table with seven somewhat star-struck firemen. The best part came after lunch, where we got a tour of the station and all had the chance to slide down the fireman pole. By the time it was my turn the firemen were all down the bottom, and I was picturing a Bridget Jones-type moment with my fat behind landing on someone's head. As it was I squeaked down the pole sooo slowly it was embarrassing. It looked much higher from the top than it actually was, I probably could have jumped down faster than I slid.

Next we all dressed up in fireman safety overalls, helmet, and harness in preparation for a trip on that huge extendable ladder thing that they use to fight fires that are ten floors up from the ground. It's like a cherry-picker, but it goes much much higher in the air. We were clipped on to the side of the 'basket' bit and went up for a look around. It was really cold that high up, and I got to see more of Bournemouth than I ever had before (or have since). I also got to peek at the neighbours who thought they were having a private barbie in their fully-enclosed back yard. Hehe.

After that it was time to bid farewell to our friendly fire-fighters. In the end a couple of them did actually turn up at the 30^th birthday party, which was a fabulous evening of drinking, daggy music and disco dancing. R tells me the party was filmed, and apparently I'm in pretty much every shot. Great.