Timing... What Timing?

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, doing not very much really. The plan was to get involved with a boating club and start training(?) to do the Devizes to Westminster race this coming Easter. Not, I hasten to add, the full blown, hard on, turbo-nutters overnight race for two, but the more civilised, solo cruise while taking in a little relaxing camping that takes place over the full four days of the Easter week-end.

Now the full-frontal DW means paddling half the length of the Avon/Kennet canal and then, just as it’s getting dark, turning right and doing the same again on the Thames. But, and here‘s the clincher, navigating the various weirs, locks and their ebb & flow in the dark with nothing but a bicycle torch to light the way. Now realistically I could not really expect anyone with any common sense to take me on as a partner, let me find out how to paddle a canoe and get fit enough to complete the 125 miles. After all, you would have to question the sanity of anyone who would take on a raw beginner in those circumstances and ask yourself if you would want to be in a boat with them, in the river and in the dark. This is not something that sensible people do.

Anyway, that was the plan last October. It did seem then that there might be some slight chance that I could do enough training in seven months to make a passable attempt at the four day event, but it wasn’t to be. I and went looking for a club to get some sort of instruction in how to use it. But it seems that club ab-initio training sessions close down for the winter while everyone gets their heads down to the serious training for the DW. So I missed out. That, together with other priorities meant that the plan went on the back burner. The coup-de-grace to the plan was when I accepted the inevitible and volunteered instead as support crew for my son and his friend Adam’s effort in the DW instead.

But I had ordered up a kayak and a couple of weeks ago finalised the order with Marsport, obtaining a tentative completion date, which is in about a fortnight’s time. So, it looks like I’ve got a lot more time to become better prepared for an assault on the four day DW. In the meanwhile I've sought out and bought in other essentials like cagool, winter long-johns and life jacket, aka a BA. (See how I'm getting to know the jargon?).  All I've got to do is get the timing right.