Good News and Bad

First the bad news....

Brian has returned to Oman where he lives and works.  He has paddled with us on our training sessions on Windermere for the last few weeks but now his stay in the UK is over. 

There are not too many lakes in Oman and the poor chap will now be training on The Arabian Sea where I suspect it may be slightly warmer! He will be back in England only a couple of days before we start our trip.  Keep up the hard work!

Now the good news....

We have a driver.  Brian's friend Ian Roberts has "volunteered" to drive our support vehicle - Brian's camper van with a canoe trailer.  Not sure how Brian persuaded him. Was it blackmail or bribery? But what a relief.  Ian will drop us each morning and collect us each evening - taking us and our boats to a suitable overnight camp ground.  Having the vehicle and trailer will be an enormous help getting round some of the longer tunnels if we are unsuccessful in our bid to gain permission to paddle through.  But Ian's main job will be to scout a suitable hostellery for a well earned pint at the end of a hard day's paddling.

and....

We now have our donations page up and running on the new BT managed site "mydonate".  Unlike other similar sites there is no charge and no commission so every penny donated (other than normal credit/debit card charges) will be going to our charities. If anyone would like to be among the first to support our good causes then go to mydonate