Where to start? It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted and it's been pretty hectic! I've had a cancelled regatta because the river was frozen, snow, the usual work during the week, and then to top it off, a trip to London and Cardiff this weekend!
It was meant to be the first regatta of the year two weekends ago up in Gloucester - where? yeah... it still means as much to me as it probably does to you - but the week building up had been particularly cold and the river/canal the regatta was supposed to be rowed on had frozen over! I was quite disappointed as I still haven't seen what British Schoolboy rowing is like and won't for another couple of weeks yet. Although, for a nice change I got Saturday off (almost) - I still had a class to help out with - but it was much better than being tied up with two trainings on Saturday and finishing at 3pm!
Snow! We had our first snow of the year on the Sunday of the same weekend so naturally it being a rare sight all three of us jumped up to look around a white Monmouth. There was a good inch on the ground but it still has nothing on Wellington last year surprisingly! Unfortunately it was warm overnight on the Sunday and had all nearly melted by Monday morning, but still - snow is snow!
Last weekend was by far the best of the year and will be incredibly hard to top until summer holidays (maybe April when I go to Mulheim to see Seb!) - which is something I didn't mention above so I'll do that quickly. I've got a three week break over the start of April for Easter and the first week I'm flying over to Germany for a week to hang out/party with Seb! It's nice being in the same time zone as one of your mates and I've been talking to Seb quite a lot. I think the best thing he's said to me so far - unfortunately nowhere near as close as the gold he dished out at rowing last year but still very good quality - was the day he passed his driving test *queue jokes about yet another reckless driver*....
"Zac, guess what?"
"You passed? Easy right?"
"Yeah, and no.. I almost failed.
"I had to wait for another car but it was SO SLOW so I didn't stop and nearly hit me..."
Classic Seb. And no.. This isn't 'racism'.
NOW onto last weekend (sorry for the sidetrack)! For the first time in five weeks, Sam, Andy and I got out of Monmouth! Wooh! We headed down to London to go to a party with a whole bunch of Gap students. It was a really good night with all the people we met in Bristol when we were there for the day plus so many more, including Nick Fenton and Jonny Tavita. It's such a good feeling seeing a face you've known for the past five years of your life; it was a little piece of home and a really good way to start the night running into them!
On Sunday morning the three of us headed back to Paddington Station to catch the train to Cardiff. We got hold of tickets to the Six Nations game between Wales and Scotland at the Millennium Stadium! It's like nothing I've ever seen. The place is huge! It seats 75,000 and was totally packed. It was spine tingling when the National Anthem was sung. It was so loud and so passionate. You have to experience it first hand because what you see on TV is nothing like being there in person. I have a video of the anthem so you get a rough idea of our seats and what the atmosphere was like.
We have half-term next week and I we're going back to Cardiff to take a proper look around, as well as seeing a bit more of Wales. Maybe Swansea and a bit of the North, but we haven't booked train tickets for that yet (it's something we really need to get better at). Just a warning; I'm going to start talking about my own rowing now so if you don't want to be bored to death this is the place to stop. I've been training with the senior squad since I've been here and they are so good. These guys are aiming to win Nationals so they work extremely hard. The coach, Robin (or Uncle Robin to all the other gaps) is also the selector and coach of the Welsh junior squad so he's made me register for that and says I'm going to make it in... We had 5K tests last week and it's not too long until the first 2K I don't think. I'm really keen to top my PB from last year and I think I have a good chance since I did pretty well in my 5K. But who knows... all these fried school lunches and dinners...and beer... might get to me first! Only time will tell!
Good luck to everyone just arriving around the country for Uni and I'll keep you posted (let me know the links to your blogs too if you're writing one)
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