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As Ali was away for the weekend watching the England v. Germany game at Wembley with her folks, I got a tad restless on the Sunday morning and just had to trek up the M5 to the NEC. The aim was not buy anything so I spent the first hour rambling around and getting in the way of the local film-crew that was clustered around the try-dive pool. I don;t know how many prize-draws I entered but I have to wait and see whether I win that weekend in Pembrookshire (on my own!) or the holiday for two in the Red Sea (literally?). Anyway, the show was good in that you got to talk to the manufacturers and then had to go around and find the dive shops that were offering the best deals. I did take the camera with me as that is what you would expect me to do isn't it ??...... not much photo-opportunity as I was laden down with carrier-bags and promo material almost immediately.
However, after a couple of calls on the mobile, I met up with Daren and Charlotte who were out to kit up Darren with some regs., a BC and a tank......
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I ended up leaving them for half-an-hour at this stand while Darren sorted out a deal and went of to the BSAC stand to find the legendary Keith Lawrence of ukrecscuba.co.uk fame. After waiting for 15 mins. and chatting in the meantime to this guy with a digital camera and a laptop, I found out that this was actually Keith. It is nice to say 'Hi' to someone IRL after listening to their exploits in cyberspace........ anyway, the phone beckoned me back to Darren and I spent the next ten minutes fondling the Kevlar material of his newly-purchased Oceanic BC. The suddenly........
.....along came Rachael and her other half (whose name is forgotten as I am a dimwit!). Apparantly, Alistair, VJ and Chris were at the show as well...... there was only one place to look...........
Sure enough, they were supping away so we decided to join them !
I didn't quite get away from the show without making a purchase as I ended up with this tiny little back-up torch/strobe to the one that, hopefully, the missus is going to buy me in the near future and also yet another book !
Next year, I will have to save for a couple of months as I was a bit gutted not being able to take home all those lovely little trinkets of equipment that would populate those spare D-rings on the BC !