Standing by and standing down on the first day of the year

 I had spent the first day of the year on a nice walk, and then dealing with the damage to strong winds of New Year's Eve had caused in the garden. Then I had had a shower and dinner. I had just said down on the sofa with a cup of tea when I checked my phone, which was lying there in the charger. To my surprise, there were two messages on there! From the cave rescue team. In the short time I had been showering, cooking and eating, we had had been put on standby, and also stood down again. Crikey! I was glad the overdue party was actually safe and well, and I settled on my sofa with my tea, feeling very snug. And then the next message came in. We were put on standby again! Less than half an hour after having been put on standby the previous time. And it was the exact same venue. This was getting weird. But I gathered my mind out of the snugness, and got my kit ready in case there was going to be a full callout. But only just over half an hour after having put on standby, we were stood down again. We had been put on standby, and stood down again, twice, within the hour! I think that is a first.

It is clear that quite a lot of people in the underground community think it is a good idea to celebrate the New Year by doing a beautiful trip in North Wales! And at least they do make sure there is someone who keeps an eye on whether they come out on time. It is the done thing; if you go underground and nobody knows where you are and what time you are expected to be out, and something goes wrong, it could be a while before someone realises you might be in trouble and alerts the appropriate services. But two parties overdue in such close succession, and then also both found to be out and safe within minutes; that is unusual.

The controller who had called us out twice had, as one would expect, wondered if maybe this was just the same party? Maybe they had told several people to contact cave rescue if they weren't out by a certain time (8 PM, one assumes), and that had resulted in the two messages to the team? But he had verified this, and it really was two separate parties, one having gone in about an hour after the other. Oh well! I suppose this means the system works. If people are late, their emergency contacts know what to do, we all get ready to step in if needed, and then everything works out anyway and nobody has to leave their nice warm cup of tea. Let's hope most messages to the team end like this!