That is the question eh? Aren’t we supposed to be setting resolutions and reviewing the past year with a view to cutting all that is toxic from our lives and striding hopefully forward? Call me an old curmudgeon but I went to bed at the usual time on the 31st December only to be woken (briefly) by fireworks around the midnight hour. Did the usual things on the (ate, drank tea, watched telly, read) and on the 2nd went scuba diving as you do.

The best thing about diving I often say, is that all you can do is breathe. Stop doing that, or even hold your breath for a second too long, and things get interesting very quickly. I’m an instructor and put one of my students through his paces with some rescue skills. He did fine for a man who had been ambushed! We tootled around the shallow end (a mere 6-9m an average UK home is about 8m to the point of the house) for half an hour or so and came out a tad chill and ready for a coffee.

It’s a very meditative sport when you’re under water. If you get it right there’s a wonderful sense of weightlessness when you’re underwater (matched only by an incredible sense of ‘how heavy is this kit’ when on land). It’s a very peaceful place. Watching the fish glide by and rediscovering old friends like the tank in the image above. You have to learn patience in your preparation and in dealings with some less than considerate water users. You learn to go slow. No point in the fish shooting past in a blur as you zoom by finning like crazy. Even if you come up from the bottom too fast you stand a chance of getting a DCI (Decompression illness sometimes known as a bend). Everything about diving can be summed up as slow, patient wonder.

Today for a change I’m baking. You need patience for that too. I’m typing as the dough proves for the first time. No worries. No hurry.