Rain and Work

Everyone knows me as the weather witch - when I go away the heavens open here, the weirs come up and the water levels at my destination become unusually 'wrong' (too low, too high); when I come back the rain stops; when I get a full time job the rains start etc. etc.

This year, apart from the Ottawa having some 50+ year snow-drought, and Shepperton/Sunbury mostly being at the wrong levels when I turned up, the weather has generally been good to me. However, last week I was offered an admin job for 6 weeks - full time, that's 5 days a week, 9 to 5. Hmmm. OK then, I thought... good money-earner with no screaming/noisy kids.... and seeing as I'm not going to get any boating done (summer season - all weirs shut)...and I can start doing some biking in the evenings with Cam - perfect.

Obviously the rain gods heard my decision being made, as no sooner as I had agreed to work, it started raining.

24 hours later Hurley was on 2 gates, thankfully it was still Sunday, and even more thankfully it had only just reached the web update when we were on our way - a late-May (although the temperatures felt like November) bank-holiday evening, chilled out paddling (no competition training to think about) with only 4 of us in the eddy.

36 hours after continuous rain Hurley was on 4. After 6 months of wave-paddling I didn't want to be too hasty in getting back into hole moves (the only option when Hurley is on 4) so we went to check out Sunbury weir. For once it was actually working for me, and once again the news hadn't reached the www so only 5 of us there. Due to the gate configuration and boily eddy it was a huge workout to get onto the thing and after just 5 goes on the wave my arms were totally pumped (due to the number of misses/subbing out/ falling over on the eddyline). But once on the wave it was great fun - really fast, good for all the wave moves and it was made even better as it was so unexpected to be surfing a decent wave, in England, at the end of May!



Sunbury on Monday (photo from http://www.lowridavies.co.uk)

Apparently Sunbury is still forming a good wave, although I haven't been able to check it out again as I've been working...no excuses though, the evenings are light 'till late (although I'm not sure I can face rush-hour motorway traffic), and who knows maybe it will work just once more for me this season :)