The rain it doth continue to pour. England is saturated and can take no more. Mr Mason senior is on the telephone on a daily basis telling us of other places which are flooded. Today it is Chiswick. “That’s near you, isn’t it?” Well, no, not in that sense. “What about the canal?” It’s a long way downhill from here and no, it hasn’t flooded either. We have water coming in from the top but nothing from the ground. It is dispiriting to get up and find it raining day after day, though. Snow would be better than this. At least there is some entertainment in slipping and sliding all over the place, watching Dog trying to bite snowflakes and seeing the Psychotic cat knee deep in the white stuff and positively fuming. Alas, we are not so lucky.

Training for Vogalonga is ramped up a little at the weekend. We are not sure if we can paddle or not as the wind is high and all that but we are also having a meeting to Plan Things. As I haven’t been paddling for a couple of weeks it is lovely to see everyone and to try out my new heat generating t-shirt plus, obviously, the Monkey Hat. The Monkey Hat is a source of amusement/terror/concern about my sanity, depending on your perspective. I love it. Arriving at training, the wind is too high to take the boat out so it’s the old favourite – circuit training. Clearly I don’t understand the concept because when we complete one set of exercises, I am horrified to hear Ciara, our coach, say that we will start from the beginning all over again. All over again? D’oh! That’s the meaning of circuits. There are some exercises which are just beyond me but I swing my paddle about with enthusiasm and stretch everything which is able to be stretched to the best of my ability. Everyone else seems to be doing well and we even have some seasonal speed skating moves thrown in for good measure.

After doing 3 circuits (who asked for a fourth?) we head upstairs to the fabulous Dim Sum restaurant at the top of the Regatta Centre. We are early and have to wait before closed doors looking like we haven’t eaten a decent meal since breakfast. Once inside, we settle down to chatting, ribbing each other and wondering who was the most pervy in our email exchanges about team kit. Eddy does the all-important ordering remembering not to order 3 portions of tripe like we accidentally did last time.

Our job is to select a team captain which was easy to do and we are overwhelming in our choice. Cap’n Deryn. Then we are on to selecting our team colours which is harder than it might sound and the jury is still out as to what they will be so hold your breath a little longer and I’ll report back. We also arrange more dates for training and then, as it would be rude not to, we eat some dim sum which is divine, especially after circuit training.

I bet you wished you belonged to a Dragon Boat team!