Rowing in November

07 Dec 2010 posted by Dave Holby

Current Location – Edinburgh, Scotland

39279 km rowed… 795 km remaining

Good grief - soooo close! Just a few more days and I’ve got my fingers crossed I’ll be able to hang up my bashed up rowing buttocks for good. It will absolutely break my heart when it’s done but in terms of the body it will just be lovely – the temperature in Basingstoke is really starting to drop and I have a feeling that the remaining days of the row will bring with it quite a bit of snow… trekking from Kempshott here we come!

From chilly climates to cracking fundraising and what a month thanks to Basingstoke Writer’s Circle and the girls from 1st Lychpit Guides. The BWC have been such fantastic supporters of the challenge and during the last 12 months guests and writers have donated money to the pot – last week I was honoured to be invited to their last meeting of the year where they presented Breakthrough with a cheque for a rather stonking £200…. not only that but they made me eat lots of food – I love them. A huge thank you to Joan and the guys for a great evening.

I was also thrilled to be invited to a fundraising night earlier this week by the very lovely Helen and Lauren (aka Molerat and Skunk) as the guides from 1st Lychpit put on a raffle, a cake sale (always a winner with fat boy rowers) and a cracking talent show. A huge thank you to Amy, Charlotte, Katie, Lucy, Elise,  Eleanor, Panda, Alice, Olivia, Anna and the rest of the girls for all their brilliance and hard work – I have to mention in particular Meggie, Amy, Charlotte and Sofia (aka Twitch and Flick), watch out for these fab four in a future Britain’s Got Talent!

I felt very honoured as a chap to be bestowed my own Guide name of Alpaca – effectively I’m a llama… a very hairy llama with a daft haircut… Helen told me the the similarity was purely coincidental.

Both Helen and Lauren were fantastic in compering the evening – thank you guys, it was just brilliant and a magnificent £130 was raised.

The start of the month also marked the Basingstoke Christmas lights switch on and I was chuffed to bits to be part of the parade through Festival Place. Dressed as a pirate I stood on top of a small trailer stradling the front end of the rowing machine (we couldn’t quite fit the end on!) and was pulled around by Stu (also dressed as a pirate). It was a slightly emotional experience for two chief reasons – the first being that the very unsteady trailer caused several rather violent clashes between the upright rowing monitor and my… well… you get the picture… and the second being that wearing green and black striped trousers I looked like a giant mint humbug. Stu, my younger and much better looking fellow pirate, did not look like a humbug in the slightest and I sort of hate him for looking so much cooler but also kind of love him too – thank you mate for dragging a bashed up rower and half a machine all through Festival Place x It was a brilliant night and thank you so much to the lovely Theresa for letting me be a part of it.

A huge thank you to Clive, Adam and Ian for all donating to Breakthrough through our justgiving site – we’re now up to £15,500 and I’m hoping our surge is about to come… fingers crossed.

I leave you now with an action man Dave the rower – complete with felt tip pen beard and silly hat. Thank you to John for his artistic brilliance.