Monday 30 March 2009

Ironing Board - Cappuccino and a floater.

Given the truck had a clutch problem, Austen and Rid had to do a patrol on foot.

Rid was dead chuffed that he had a new pair of overalls, all freshly pressed and ironed, and decided that this was a good day to give them their first airing. Not to be outdone Austen put on his Oakley wrap-around designer sunglasses. What a smart pair! They were ready for action; they were ready for whatever Swanage would throw at them.

Our intrepid officers managed to make it a full 172 yards before they stopped for coffee at Ocean Bay. Rid had a cappuccino and Austen a floater. They sipped their coffee knowing that this afternoon was different, there was an air of uncertainty about it, a breeze of nervousness and a slight whiff of danger; both thought they might be tasked to a dangerous job. Suddenly acting on a hunch they ran to the Stone Quay, well I say ran, they walked quite quickly.

On arrival at the quay they were confronted with a situation that every Coastguard Rescue Officers dreads, no not high cliffs, windy weather, gorse bushes or big dogs, but worse, far far worse …..an unattended ironing board.

Yes folks, a wooden ironing board on the Stone Quay. Now the team have dealt with seals, dolphins and sharks but this was a very different kettle of fish- the chaps would need their wits about them to deal with this situation.


Photo: Lesser Spotted Wooden Ironing Board (Baord rivestente di ferro- di legno, that’s Latin you know! - well Italian but that’s close enough)

This ironing board was of the wooden variety which is most uncommon in British waters. It appeared to be sunning itself on the quay, perhaps waiting for its mother to return from sea. Austen and Rid are experienced operators and knew that they had to approach the ironing board slowly as they can be quiet nervous and will bite if challenged. It is also important to remember that much like grizzly bears you must never get between the ironing board cub and its mother or you might be attacked.

For those readers not familiar with the ironing board it attacks by trapping ones fingers in their folding mechanism. And for the chaps out there …that is why you should never iron naked, …not that a bloke should be ironing as that’s women’s work! (I’m so dead for writing that!).

Anyway what do you do confronted by an ironing board, well you sit very still and try to ignore it, eagle eyed readers will see from the photo that no one is making eye contact. Even the football behind it is trying to move away slowly. Austen and Rid took the view that the ironing board was docile and decided it might be worth trying to catch it. No justifiable reason, they just thought “Hey, let’s catch it”.

Austen and Rid slowly moved in slowly using the ‘pincer movement’, suddenly ………..

More tomorrow.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So none of you were tempted by some extreme ironing

http://www.extremeironing.com/

Anonymous said...

No extreme ironing then!

http://www.extremeironing.com/