A MASSIVE thank you to my work who have very kindly donated me a signed Lewis Hamilton cap with accompanying letter of authenticity. This is going to be given away to one lucky person whose name will be pulled out of a hat on the 1st of August 2016 providing they have donated more than £25 to my just giving page. If you haven’t done so already you can do so by going to www.justgiving.com/mattstorry.
They have also donated a couple of extra little bits and bobs that I will use to generate sponsorship. Watch this space for more details. If you have friends or family who are F1 fans these items will really suit them...
My other thank you goes to a family who were in a boat on the river Thames near Abingdon on Friday, if you read on you'll find out why. I was supposed to be heading down to Dover this weekend to go for a swim and meet my fellow Polar Bears (my channel relay team this year). However, I caught a bit of a cold on the way home from my holiday (plane flu rather than man flu) which moved onto my chest and I haven't really swum all week. I decided that it would be a good idea to go for a test swim on Friday to see if I could do any distance without setting my cough off before travelling all the way down to Dover. Needless to say, I didn't go in the end as I still need a bit of time to recover.
My friends, both who are swimming the channel in one form or another, joined me and we left from Abingdon lock around about 7pm. We had a nice leisurely swim down the river, my cough appeared to be under control and we were generally enjoying ourselves laughing at the people in boats who we could hear calling us mental. About 1 km into the swim while breathing I noticed something rather large flying above us. As it was still there a couple of breaths later and getting a bit closer I decided to stop and have a look. As some of you will probably know I have been in this position before... there was a massive red kite flying above us. I think he was just having a look at what was going on, as well as trying to decide if we would be good to eat. After a few seconds of me staring up at him I think he realised that we probably weren't food and he flew off to hunt elsewhere.
We carried on swimming to our exit point to find that there were a couple of swans and their cygnets right where we wanted to get out. Now most people are aware that swans can be quite aggressive, despite looking lovely, especially around their young. Because of this we gave them a lot of space (we were on the other side of the river) and swam heads up breaststroke so we didn't disturb them by splashing. At that point a boat rocks up and starts feeding them bread. We had pretty much passed them at this point and moved a little bit further down the river when one of the swans broke away from the other and started heading in our direction. It took a good 30 seconds for the swan to cross the river and as I was closest at the time it made a bee-line straight for me. Luckily we all have chill swim tow floats in which we carry our clothes, keys, phone etc. and I was able to position myself behind my float. That is the closest a swan has ever gotten to me while swimming and when they are angry, boy do they look big! Anyhow the people in the boat were able to distract it by throwing a bit more bread in the water and after 10 seconds (it felt like a minute to me) the swan decided that it wanted a bit more dinner and left me alone.
They have also donated a couple of extra little bits and bobs that I will use to generate sponsorship. Watch this space for more details. If you have friends or family who are F1 fans these items will really suit them...
My other thank you goes to a family who were in a boat on the river Thames near Abingdon on Friday, if you read on you'll find out why. I was supposed to be heading down to Dover this weekend to go for a swim and meet my fellow Polar Bears (my channel relay team this year). However, I caught a bit of a cold on the way home from my holiday (plane flu rather than man flu) which moved onto my chest and I haven't really swum all week. I decided that it would be a good idea to go for a test swim on Friday to see if I could do any distance without setting my cough off before travelling all the way down to Dover. Needless to say, I didn't go in the end as I still need a bit of time to recover.
My friends, both who are swimming the channel in one form or another, joined me and we left from Abingdon lock around about 7pm. We had a nice leisurely swim down the river, my cough appeared to be under control and we were generally enjoying ourselves laughing at the people in boats who we could hear calling us mental. About 1 km into the swim while breathing I noticed something rather large flying above us. As it was still there a couple of breaths later and getting a bit closer I decided to stop and have a look. As some of you will probably know I have been in this position before... there was a massive red kite flying above us. I think he was just having a look at what was going on, as well as trying to decide if we would be good to eat. After a few seconds of me staring up at him I think he realised that we probably weren't food and he flew off to hunt elsewhere.
We carried on swimming to our exit point to find that there were a couple of swans and their cygnets right where we wanted to get out. Now most people are aware that swans can be quite aggressive, despite looking lovely, especially around their young. Because of this we gave them a lot of space (we were on the other side of the river) and swam heads up breaststroke so we didn't disturb them by splashing. At that point a boat rocks up and starts feeding them bread. We had pretty much passed them at this point and moved a little bit further down the river when one of the swans broke away from the other and started heading in our direction. It took a good 30 seconds for the swan to cross the river and as I was closest at the time it made a bee-line straight for me. Luckily we all have chill swim tow floats in which we carry our clothes, keys, phone etc. and I was able to position myself behind my float. That is the closest a swan has ever gotten to me while swimming and when they are angry, boy do they look big! Anyhow the people in the boat were able to distract it by throwing a bit more bread in the water and after 10 seconds (it felt like a minute to me) the swan decided that it wanted a bit more dinner and left me alone.