Twelve months on?

Its all good.

Perspective

Above: All of my clothes
Below: Some of my kit

Three things. (2)

Working title

Three things.

That is all.

Less than 3?

I've sometimes heard it said that you should always paddle in groups of three or more. With that in mind, the two of us went paddling. I say paddling, it was a fun little blast down the Kent, followed by a manful stroll back up the river to do the good bits again. We then retired to the pub for lunch.

No faff, no fuss.

Drove to the river, paddled (and paddled again) then went home for tea and medals.

Hurrah.

Canoexpo and goodbye to all that

This last weekend saw the first Canoexpo, held at Stoneleigh Park just outside Coventry. This was the biggest canoe show held in the UK, and as well as being an awesome weekend of shopping, talks and looking at paddling stuff, it also marked the end of my illustrious (hmmm) career at Brookbank.




So, 4 years at Brookbank, it's been fun, and I'll miss it, and I'll miss the people. That said, I am looking forward to my new job, and I am looking forward to paddling more, now that I don't have to work on Saturdays!

Cause and effect.

A change is as good as a rest I suppose...

How very profound.

Made me laugh anyway.

Curses.

Canoe polo is a great game. It involves some element of contact. Which in turn involves some element of repairing. Which isn't a particularly exciting way to spend your day off.

Sundays For Sleeping?

No chance;Early start...

...leads to early finish.

Food, then more training....

...day ends.

Sunday's most definitely not for sleeping. Got on the Lower Dee at 8:55, got off at 10:15. Stood outside the pub at 11:45 waiting for them to open for lunch.

Home for mid-afternoon tea and medals.

Training in the evening.

Hooray.

"Character building"

Being Christmas, I've been at home, and my parents went walking, so having not been to the Peak for a while, I thought I'd go too.

It was really good. It rained fairly well non-stop, we went to a pub and got back to the car after dark.

Proper character building* stuff. Much better than watching crap on the TV all day.

* a.k.a. wet, windy, cold, dark, muddy. Awesome :-)

Me? Easily entertained?

Most definitely.

Sorry.

Christmas is cancelled. I bought a camera.

Am I joking? Some of you will find out in 12 days...

:-)

Just like the Wenning.

I got the afternoon off work.
We drove to Lancaster.
Turns out I'm not completely better after going paddling at Nottingham.
I could only manage one pint of the really good beers in the pub.
We met Loz and Matt with a plan to go paddling, which I was secretly hoping would fall through so I could retire to a cafe, drink tea and rue the day I decided it'd be a good idea to go to Nottingham.
It didn't.
We went to the Hindburn.
It was high at the bottom and low at the top.
It looked a lot like the Wenning.
A lot.
I learned that paddling a big boat just means you have a heavier boat to carry past the bits you walk round.


Oh yeah, it snowed on the way home.

In the Zone.

This is the most unashamedly cringeworthy, embarrassing and corny title I've ever written. I'd like to pretend it relates to my zen-like calm whilst busting out a shed-load of supercool playboat, sorry, freestyle moves.

It doesn't. I'm crap at playboating.

But, in spite of that, it's quite apt, as I just went paddling in my new Zone dry-top, which is Nookie's new totally latex-free dry top. I was keen on the concept, as I have terrible circulation, so my hands often go a funny colour, and I thought it'd be comfortable.

It was, without a doubt, brilliant.

It was warm; my car was merrily showing 5-6 degrees as the outside temperature, I had one thermal on, and it was only my head that got cold after many many rolls in the top wave at HPP.
It was dry; I got several, actually, who am I kidding, I got loads of rinsings and only got a bit of water jetting up the sleeves once toward the end of the session, but this is probably more to do with me having smallish wrists for someone who has to wear an XL cag.

It was comfortable; er, not much more to say about that. None of that latex squeezing misery; no seals slapping you in the wrists when you take it off.

Here's some pictures, largely nothing to do with the cag;