Don't Rock The Boat

I'm not a water person. I don't like getting cold or wet, I don't like water up my nose, I prefer it hot with soap, and the words white water induce mild panic. So what better activity to take up than......kayaking.

So CoffeePotterand I and another friend G went to the local leisure centre to give it a go. It's fair to say that G is a naturally athletic slender and streamlined sort of person and C/P and I are built more for comfort. The funniest part was when the instructors sized us up to see what sort of kayaks we should have. They looked at G and decided she needed ' a 220' then they looked us up and down and with their eyes drifting to our nether regions pronounced that we should be issued with 'Piranhas' . We were expecting battleship grey floating tanks to be wheeled out.

It reminded me of when I went to that posh lingerie store in London, you know, the one the Queen favours. They pride themselves on not measuring you but just judging by sight. I spent a fortune there and sent the whole lot back as they weren't really right in shall we say, normal use. Clearly her Maj never has to bend over.
At this point I realised I had left the 'hygiene sticker' (gents, don't ask) in my new swimming costume and almost gave myself an inadvertent Brazilian trying to surreptitiously remove it. We were like giggling schoolgirls, the sort of hilarity that sets in when you know you are doomed.

Anyway we eventually got in the water, a mission by itself, and spent a happy hour barging around the pool colliding with other boats and saying 'Sorry, I'm a beginner' like it wasn't obvs.Nobody seemed to mind as they knew we were rookies, but I don't know how many weeks we'll get away with that excuse.

We learned to go forwards backwards and stop more or less. Though I was having difficulty with that until luckily one of the instructors realised that I had shipped about half a boat load of water and was about to go glugging to the bottom. I had to get out with great difficulty and very inelegantly and empty the water out. It was a lot better after that, and we're going back next week.

The picture is of my new costume ( it looks better off than on) and shorts flapping around in the wind like a warning signal to others. I might change my name to TecH2Ophobe