Basking in Brecon

I’d agree with James… it’s taking longer than expected to make up for the lack of sleep. Three days after finishing the race, and now back home in Brecon, I am still swaying slightly. All in all, it is proving essential to avoid strenuous activities like unpacking, stripping wallpaper, or tiling. Instead I’m finding it necessary to move languidly between my bed and the garden for periods of approximately 2.5 hours at a time, absorbing essential vitamins from sunlight and strawberries and beer. I did manage to cut the grass this morning, but that’s not much of a challenge as our garden could fit on James’s yacht.

It has been great to catch up with Naomi and the kids, and to hear how the drama of the race unfolded from their perspective. Seeing me off to the boat, playing on the beach, the convoy leaving the harbour…

Later the concerns when our tracker stopped just short of Bardsey Sound – had we packed it in, were we wrecked on a rock? No messages could get through until about 1am to confirm that we were fine and heading into Carnarfon.

Then seeing us finish the Snowdon shuffle and head off into the Menai Straits…

Watching from the Menai Bridge as we negotiated the Swellies, and seeing Sea Fever run aground just in front of us (rear-left yacht, pointing in wrong direction!), while Moby J expertly lead us through…

Drifting under the Menai Bridge. Had we been boarded by Hari Krishnas? No, these were our “Practical Action” t-shirts.

And later, watching all the drama unfold when we were catching the leaders, ran aground in Whitehaven harbour, caught them again round Jura, etc etc!

Anyway, must go and do some more hard recovering. I might do the Coity race with Naomi tomorrow, if we can find somewhere suitable to chain the kids; I expect with my knackered legs and after so many miles of running slowly with a pack, I’ll not be far ahead of her.