English summer

Just came in out of the sun in our garden, Sun out, birds chirping, moths and butterflys flitting, bees buzzing, cats snoozing, flowers wafting, fruit trees bulging,veg popping.

Wonderful.

BLADES

Hi, as you can see below is a pic of a boat with 8 men and 1 girl with bits of willow stuffed down the back of their shirts. Here in Cambridge every summer the local rowing clubs have a week of evening races called bumps. The River Cam is windy and narrow and therefore boats cannot race side by side, so we chase each other down the Cam over a pre determined course of about 2k. Each club enters both men and womens crews which are distributed throughout different divisons based on the results of a earlier race.

My club,City of Cambridge (CCRC) enetered 8 mens and 5 womens crews this year. My crew was M7, made up of men with less then a year rowing and a couple of maturer lads with various knee injuries. We were extremely lucky in that one of the top girl rowers in our club, Emma took the time to coach us over a couple pf months. She was greatly assisted byu the girls capt, Jo, who coxed us as well. Both women are extremely good rowers and were simply inspirational in the help and time they gave us.

So, CCRC M7 entered four races, one held each evening between Tues and last evening. We won every race and bumped all four crews we were pitted against. So each row back to our club house we stopped and followed the tradition of putting willow in our clothes as a sign of victory.

When we won our last and hardest fought race on Friday, we were automatically given Blades. Blades is the rowing term for oars. We were one of only 5 mens crews from over 50 to achieve this and it was totally unexpected. We can now buy a blade inscribed with the crews names as a memento of our effort.

So, all in all, a great week.

We got BLADES.

Cambridge Bumps 2006 - City of Cambridge Rowing Club Mens 7

BLADES BOAT

 

Tesco's bag for life

Tesco's say that they will replace their bags for life when they wear out !! Hello, then they cannot be a bag for life then can they, so why do they call them that? To sound enviromentally friendly and all green, to make their vulture like greed seem less rapicious by some well meaning liberal Guardian reader. In reality its an endless search for more profit and domination of the supermarket sector of the British economy.

Anyway its about the hottest day in the Uk since the blitz, that by the way was 1940. Though there were a few hot days and nights afterwards. And no, I don't apologise to any German bloggers. Why should I?

Cats out hunting another tiny little shrew like creature again, seems hardly fair two big healthy strong cats and one wee little scuttling mouse thingy. Wonder if bees are effected by the heat?? They didnt seem to be arund in such scale and force today, maybe they wilt under the hot weather. I suppose other creatures preserve energy and water by waiting till it cools slightly.

Tues and Weds is meant to be hotter luckily I'm at home nice and cool in our basement flat. Tomatoes are exploding in size although we are watering them twice a day to prevent them wilting. We have started saving our greywater from the kitchen and put it out on the parched plants in the evening. Should help. Waterbutt should finally arrive soon and we can collect the rain water off the roof. Worms are doing well now there is two of them so the original one doesnt get compacted and waterlogged. Tiger worms are hardy little things but they cannot swim and they drown easily. So I ve left the waste tap open constantly for 'em.

Jay looking thoughful in Greece

 

Hi, been and gone forgot about this blog thing for ages. Therefore also forgot my username and password, luckily i sit here recovering from food poisoning so I have loads of time to spare to fiddle away and get reinstated. So, how have we all been? Good. Builder is in rebuilding front steps and pathway from previous muppet attempts by last occupier. Nice chap, American lad but his accent is now a mix of American, Essex and Suffolk so he rolls his vowels and clips his consonants, very unusual. Garden is blooming, radish crop was a failure as was carrot and onion. Gooseberry were 300% better than last year, ie 3 berries and no sign of loganberrys or blackberrys yet. Three big apples on the new tree and lots of green tomatoes so that's better. Cats are out hiding under bushes like lions avoiding the hot dusty African midday sun, they've been watching Big Cat week on the BBC like me , and have decided to mimic the behaviour of their big African cousins. Knee is doing relatively well, still creaks and groans and grinds and grates, but i do try to be careful so it won't snap into shards of calcium just yet. Deftnitely does'nt like the damp though which hardly bodes well for the future, perhapsI ought to move to the Masai Mara too ? Must go and see what the builder is doing and drink yet more fluid.