Friday, November 20, 2009

The Pool Man

This has been a busy and demanding week for all sorts of reasons and lack of sleep hasn't helped the gaff, so the idea of a whole day of 'pond talk' was a tough one. Staying vertical and open eyed, let alone attentive was going to be a challenge.

The Pool man in questioned turned out to be Martin Kelly from Fairwater who has been in the business for 30 yrs+ and trained with Anthony Archer-Wills. Not someone I have heard of but then this learning curve is steep and the research hardly begun!

At break neck speed he took us through the basics of: fountains, pools with chemicals (no plants, no fish), ponds (plants and fish but no chemicals), lakes (big ponds with bank eroding waves), natural swimming pools(eco swimming holes and jolly cold in the UK), reed beds (eco & almost free cleaning systems for ponds and pools), construction materials (75mm neoprene anyone?) some construction do's and don'ts (!), pumps and more.

Hardly had time to blink let alone sleep. So enthused is he about his subject that lunch break (1pm) arrived in no time and the end of class (3.30pm) just after that.
Great images of his work went along with plenty of entertaining anecdotal evidence to back up theories and practices.

It is always great to listen to an expert who clearly enjoys their work and of course who has a depth of knowledge and experience to answer detailed and sometimes unexpected questions.

D was recording him for the distance learning course that OCGD is planning to offer soon and of course for us to listen to again and extract all the detail we missed first time round.

I left knowing that whilst using a firm like this will add to a budget, that the expense will be well worth it!

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