Wet wet wet

Well, it had to happen sometime. For the third year in a row, the weather was near-impeccable for our annual canoeing expedition up the River Wye from Glasbury to the Boat Inn in Whitney-on-Wye - but otherwise my luck wasn't in as, for the first time, I took an unplanned plunge. Was it complacency, overconfidence or just plain old folly that led me not to pack a spare pair of trousers or shorts of any description?

In our defence, the river was much higher and faster flowing than normal owing to the recent heavy rains, and we only got ourselves into trouble in our attempts to play Good Samaritan and rescue an unmanned water-filled canoe and barrel sailing downstream after other members of our party had hit low-hanging branches and capsized themselves. Still, it was a bit embarrassing that the bit of protruding branch that we struck, in the middle of open water, was the last obstacle of any description before reaching our destination.

Victims of the Great Capsizement of '09 included my shades (only bought a fortnight ago), Jen's flip-flops, two plastic tumblers and, worst of all, the camera. It would have been worse if I hadn't salvaged the floating sack of Weston's organic cider we'd been enjoying perhaps rather too much, or swam as fast as I could to catch up with one of my own flip-flops. For those looking on from the pub beer garden, pints in hand and open-mouthed at the carnage they'd just witnessed, I rather fancy the sight of me emerging from the murky water clutching a solitary flip-flop must have been something akin to that scene with Ursula Andress in Dr No. Perhaps.

A pair of loaned trousers, some steak and a few pints of real ale later and we were all chuckling away at our survival stories. Same time next year, then.


(Thanks to Dan for the photo.)