Summer Life - from Liam

Over the last few months I have scoured the internet devouring kayaking related blogs, forums and reports; my eyes have gone square from watching my kayaking DVD collection; I’ve made ridiculous yet very luxurious wish lists from a stack of catalogues and I have brought calluses to my fingers thumbing through my guidebooks whilst drafting out this seasons hit list. Perhaps my worst quality at this time of year is boring people to death by talking about kayaking, or trying to bring kayaking into conversations. This attribute only came to my attention after my Mother sat me down and reminded me how much everyone hates my uncle Scott discussing golf!

Some are lucky enough to have got through a dry summer by designing and creating paddles and helmets, others are lucky enough to have similar passions for climbing, or fortunate to be abroad.

For me the withdrawal symptoms have hit their peak. This is a relatively new experience for me; I have only been paddling for three years, and it is getting steadily worse. I’ve often wondered how the longer serving paddlers amongst us put up with this, and I genuinely wonder if other people have the same passion for floating down cold rivers surrounded by plastic as me?

The river gods pitied me and gave us a little rain which allowed myself, Tom, Jonny and Shaun’s first visit to the Swale. A great trip, with some good laughs and it did surely flush the cobwebs out of my system.

With re-sits almost done, the first trip of the new season under our B.A’s and a fantastic trip to the Andy Jackson Memorial weekend in sight, I can safely say that the season is about to kick off. And I can’t wait to see what it’s got in store for me!

See you on the river,

Liam