As Deep as the Ocean

Tuna sandwiches and a packet of crisps

“Bah…You’re as deep as the ocean you lad!”

It wasn’t an insult.

But it wasn’t a compliment either.

I must’ve been about 16 and my cool, older brother would’ve been in his late 20s.

We’d just stepped out of his rusty, beat-up, transit van ready, for a day’s graft laying cobbles.

There’s a reason cobbled streets last quite undisturbed for centuries

You won’t believe how big a cobble is. It’s not until you’ve actually laid one that you realise that a cobble, much like an iceberg, is about 90% below the surface.

I don’t have any more cobble-related anecdotes just in case that’s what you’re here for - I hate to disappoint but here we are.

It was a bitterly cold winter’s day. The icy northeast winds had as much time for my armchair philosophy as my hairy-arsed, no-neck-of-a-builder-brother.

Which is to say…Zilch!

But at least I had my tuna sandwiches and a packet of crisps to look forward to.

At lunchtime, all the workers congregated in one of the stable yard buildings where a stove was lit and tea was drunk.

The only fella I really remember was a guy we called Geordie.

Geordie’s job was to pick stones out of the field.

Our boss was worried his racehorse stud would injure himself on a rogue rock.

I don’t know if you know much about stones in fields, but it’s a never-ending process. Stones just continually work their way to the surface. So, it doesn’t matter how many stones you pick out of the field today…when you turn up tomorrow, there’ll be just as many stones.

It took a certain constitution to do that job, and Geordie had it in spades.

Which is funny because he never used a spade, just rubber gloves and a bucket.

Anyway, here I am some 30 years later still wondering if I really am as deep as the ocean?

Wondering if that’s a god or bad thing??

And wondering whether others have their own deep oceans?

At home in the depths

Are you a deep ocean thinker?

Has it left you feeling isolated or misunderstood at times?

Have you ever wished that you weren’t such a deep vessel?