Actually Going to Portsmouth

It's dark, and not because its early, it's almost 5pm rain is dismally falling and I'm starting a coach trip to Portsmouth. Today I'm not going for sightseeing and fun. Today I have a job to do, unpaid (as it's volunteering), today in a couple hours from writing this, I'm going to be a judge. Not in a court (but that would be very interesting) but a swimming judge whose powers are limited to disqualification. This does mean that whilst I'll be very close to the sea and the harbour any sights will just be small in the distance (maybe invisible as it is pitch black outside). I'll be in a random swimming pool virtually the same as any other pool. I've been to many pools in my life and let me tell you that whilst some are newer than others they are all (well basically all) 25 or 50m long and contain a large amount of water.

We are traveling on the A3. I suspect at 100 km/h (62 mph) as that is what the coach said it is speed limited to. I have just checked our speed (using Google Maps and my GPS) and it seems like we're keeping to that 62mph limit. Now I just crossed the M25 which can define the end of London (but the Greater London boundary of the 32 London boroughs and the city of London is my preferred definition). Now I have spotted the "Welcome to Portsmouth" sign so technically I've made it. Contrary to the popular phrase it is the second attempt where you succeed.

Opened by the Queen

We have made it to the pool for me to start my volunteering and well they threw me in at the deep end. All the officials made it into the "briefing room" well a stairwell halfway up the emergency escape. Now I don't know how this happened but I ended up as the Chief Timekeeper. Well as I was specifically there for judging relays I had a slight problem as the Chief Timekeeper doesn't judge a single lane which is what I needed. It was fine because I could go and do the relays when they were on. But I was in the deep end and didn't really know what I was doing. I was fine as I was the role is acting as a backup and if a backup was never needed I would have been fine. I don't think a backup was needed but anyway I was fine.

Whilst I was in Portsmouth the sights I saw (it was pitch black for the whole time), in ascending levels of interesting, were some largeish body of water leading to the channel, a bus station behind a petrol station and a bilingual road sign in both English and French. So whilst I've been to Portsmouth for over 2 hours have I really been to Portsmouth? I think the only answer that is kinda.

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