What a scorcher of a day, we couldn't have asked for a better one for the Willen Lake Dragon Boat Festival. This annual event sees businesses from al over the city converging on the lakeside to pit their teams against each other on the lake in dragon boats. There were 60 teams entered this year.
I was invited by my boys nursery (Woodland Nursery in Downsbarn) to take part in the team and we had a great day.
The first heat, we did really well, we came third out of the 5 teams in the heat and had a time of 64 seconds which was quite respectable, considering that there were quite a few professional looking teams there, all wearing the same kit and chanting the same rants. Obviously been doing a bit of practice before hand. Not like us, for us it was a case of turn up, grab your paddle and row.
BUt it went down hill for us from there. The next heat, although we were fired up by doing pretty well previously, we had a problem with our timing, and we came last out of the group and added 8 seconds to our time.
The last heat we came second. Sounds good, but there were only 2 in the race. We also added another 2 seconds to our time. So needless to say, we didn't reach the semi finals.
All in all it was a great day. It's fantastic to see so many local businessses taking part in a local event. A lot of money was raised for the World Vision charity as well.
Looking forward to next year.