why i now love british rail!

[Prowler]

earlier today a friend of mine rang me and asked if i wanted to come spend the day on his boat with a few of our other friends, so i said yeah and went to get the train across to where its moored, there was the usual delays soi ended up running about 20 minutes late and by then it had started raining pretty heavy so i rang my mate to see if they were still hanging around or going home and he said "you aint gonna believe whats happened, we've just been hit by lightening!!!!" apparently it hit the cb ariel and blew it to bits, 4 inches away from where my mate was standing, and knocked him to the floor, he said he was laying there thinking "what a ****...i'm dead, what about my kids, wait, i aint dead, GET OFF THE BOAT!!" and was totally deaf in one ear, my other mate who was sitting opposite took the full force of the exploding fibre glass aerial in the face and the other 2 were pretty much ok but shaken quite a bit, the ambulances came and gave them ecg's and 2 of them had irregular heartbeats so had to go off to hospital but my mate who was standing next to it was fine apart from a ringing ear and a bit of fibreglass in the neck, luckily he wasnt touching anything and had rubber soles on his flip flops or he'd be dead, there were 2 guys who run the marina there after i got there and they said if it had hit any other part of the boat all 4 would be dead and pointed to a rowboat moored next to them (on a wooden jetty) and said if it had hit that there'd be no boats or people or a jetty either......when we looked there were 2 massive cylinders of propane in it!!!!

so thank you british rail for providing a shitty train service as if i had got there on time and been on the boat it could have been in a totally different position or we might of all been standing in the wrong places and not be here writing this post!!!!

oh and as every single person i've told this has said the same thing, i will be doing the lottery this week!!!!!

[Dice Man]

The rain (and my stupidity) nearly killed me today. I was in the Peak District and went off the chosen walking path and up this very steep hill at the side. We were at 450 feet on the path and the peak I was going to was 950 feet on the map. It was as steep as I could possibly get up and I was effectively climbing up by grabbing the grass each step. Anyway I'm at the top and start wondering how to come back down. I walk around the other side and started walking down. Then I basically slipped on the wet grass and fell down the whole way. It was probably 300 feet as I'd already come down some of the hill, but that's just in altitude. The hill wasn't vertical so I probably went 500 feet in total considering it was pretty damn steep. I couldn't get a grip on anything- there were no rocks to grab onto here, but I knew for a fact that at the bottom were lots of rocks and then a gravel path, as I'd seen them when I came up. By the time I hit them I would be going very fast. I thought I was going to die at the time. I probably made some irrational choices now I think about it. As soon as I slipped I went through a patch of nettles and I probably could have grabbed onto them and held on at that point but it's just a bit of an instinct to defend onesself from nettles so I went straight through them and off to my probable death.
Towards the bottom I couldn't see what was in front of me, only that the grass stopped and beyond that I couldn't see anything else for about 20m until the gravel path, so presumably there were vertical or near-vertical rocks ahead of me, basically a cliff face. I hit it and go flying up into the air, but I can't see where I'm heading as it's so fast. I brace myself for the worst, and land on these rocks, bounce several times onto more rocks and come skidding right onto the gravel path. All this time I'd stayed on my back and kept my head up. I finally come to a stop on the gravel path and lie there, not feeling anything for a while.
I get up and determine that I haven't broken anything. After looking around at the scene it seems that I'd landed in all the places that were even remotely diagonal. On both the left and right side of my route downwards there were vertical "cliff faces", which would have led to certain death or serious injury had I come off them. There were also jaggy rocks all over the place but I seemed to have landed perfectly on all the ones that were diagonal enough to keep my momentum going with as little impact on me as possible. I also think even on the lucky route I had come down I would have been seriously injured had I twisted into going down on my side or front or any other position other than on my back. Even on the lucky route I had fallen about 2m a time onto some of the rocks so landing not on my back could have been really bad. I would've ended up like one of those skiers you see on video falling all the way down, except I'd have rocks instead of snow.

I've got "cuts and bruises" as they say, and nettle stings, but in my opinion am lucky to be alive at all. I've got dirt so far down my fingernails from vainly clawing at the earth behind me that I don't know how I'll ever get it out. I was wearing my lucky denim jacket which is now green from the grass, and it probably saved my life as it took the brunt of the rocks when I first hit them, as well as protecting me from the worst of the nettles (not that they were that significant)

Anyway conclusion= it was a stupid lack of judgement, and arguably I was very lucky to get away from it. The mountain had the nuts and I runner-runner straighted it.