Boats and bogs

Stu took delivery of his new Tiderace Xcite sea kayak this week, and so we took off to Windermere to give it a bit of a splosh. The previous one was a demo boat on the grounds that it had a few imperfections, and didn't hold water too well. It was one of the first kayaks manufactured by Aled Williams' new company.
It's faster, sleeker, and the finish is now stunning, but it's a shame it still leaks.

The Windermere swans were out in force as we landed, and one of these chaps marched up to me and demanded some of a bath bun I'd been eating. With menaces. They're quite big close up.

The weekend's fell racing took place in the South Lakes, at Whitestones Fell. Made more exciting last year by the presence of a few bulls out on the course, this year felt positively quiet by comparison.

So quiet in fact that at the critical point of the course where it goes bushy, rocky and sub-vertical, I got lost. Laughable when it's a flagged course, but I wasn't the only one to be caught out.


I could have done the sensible thing and sacrificed a position by retracing steps back to the nearest fell runner, but instead, I ploughed on and up until I had to scramble up a wet rockface to regain the course some minutes behind my virtual self. Still, it was a great, wet, boggy slog. Wouldn't have missed it for anything.