Go With The Flow

The only sunny day of the bank holiday weekend deserved recognition so we hired one of Ady's craft and Georgia enjoyed her first day on Herefordshire's finest waterway. With large fish jumping, birds of prey overhead and dragonflies whizzing about, only the lack of decent rapids due to high water levels, were a tiny absence on a perfect day.  Two-lunches picnic by Hannah. 

Long Weekend

After a bonus hour stationary on the M5 in a downpour, the weekend improved with a visit to Curry Rivel and the Wetlands Centre at Stoke St Gregory. We went out for supper with the 'Marks', remembering Grandad's birthday. We took it easy until the early start for the surfy South:

We worked the lines for a solid 9-5 on Saturday, stopping only for a brief 2 hour lunch. The sun peeked through in the afternoon as we sought out lumpy 4' sets. It's tough!

Hannah's 21st Party

Twenty One Years Young; our ickle daughter has not only reached the BIG 2 1 but has a job and everything! Still no sign of her leaving home though. Anyway... a good excuse to gather family and friends and have a garden party: Pimms and cupcakes on a warm August afternoon provided a memorable celebration of adulthood firmly reached. After dark, we retired to watch the closing ceremony of the London Olympics, Hannah stayed up late - not wanting to miss the Spice Girls singing, hopefully for the last time ever ... "I wanna zigazig aaaagh"!

Penny Dropped Paddle

Inspired by Team GB Olympic glory, the pursuit paddle triplet took on raging rapids in the finals of the 3 man SUP medley. After scraping through the compulsory individual skills rotation disciplines, the guys picked up maximum points in the 'annoying the neighbours' standing wave arena; securing a perfect 10 with their "You can't land there" routine. Team captain Tim T shocked onlookers with his "I've just realised we haven't got the car keys" announcement just upstream of perhaps the most important section of multiple rapids. The team never really recovered from this, giving a poor showing, on what would normally be their strongest section. Amid slightly muted applause, 4 years of work climaxed with no medals but immense pride. With funding withdrawn, the long wait to blag a lift back to the van began. Full coverage on our HD channel. 

Sandstone Crags

After watching the Team GB cyclists obliterating the opposition in the team pursuit, undaunted by black clouds we headed to our favourite crags to stretch out on some low level hard stuff. The Sun arranged a fantastic crown of light over The Malverns as we departed.