The Valley calls it the Lechlade trip, other skiff clubs call it the Meander, and we have different ideas about how long it should take and whether it should be a serious challenge. We take it fairly seriously but we do it over 4 days, whereas it used to be only for the young and fit and it took 3 days. Also, we used to camp! in one tent for the girls and one for the boys, but now we sleep on the floors of other rowing clubs which is much, much nicer, and usually there are hot showers at least. One lady who took part this year is 61. In years past we thought anyone over 40 who tried it was a nutcase.
3 years ago I rowed two thirds of it, swapping with the cox, and this year they were short of coxes so I coxed, and the weather, which started very nice, turned very nasty so I got cold and wet. The boats are double sculling skiffs. They look old but we get new ones made for us from time to time. They are racing skiffs.
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| my crew |
Helena and Alex must be the smallest, lightest crew to ever row all the way from Lechlade to Teddington in 4 days. Here they are. They are lovely and were entertained by, amongst other things, the story of Gilgamesh, from first to last, re-told by me - only I missed the bit about the flood.
One of the strange and rather unhealthy things about the Valley is that a lot of us are related to each other, and even if we are not, we have known each other for a long time, and we have also married people we met at the Valley when we were young, so for new members it must be a nightmare. "Who's this lady?" "John's aunt Mary. Sarah's mum." Alex is my niece, the archaeologist.
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