Surreal Sailing Stuff (Another Attempt At Alliteration)

Last week at sailing I asked Pam where I could get an entry form for the upcoming challenger national championships from.  She said "There's this thing, I think it's called the "Internet"?"

That was so "Pam" and really amused me.  Probably a lot more than it should have done but what can you do?!

Then this week I was introduced to someone new (by Pam) who immediately went "I hear you blog" and told me that Pam had been telling him about it.  He is TAB and sails.  And he has a good friend with MS who he'd like to get sailing but can't convince.  With her permission (or rather he gave me her number and I went "does she know?" and he said no then called her to tell her what he'd done.) he passed her phone number to me and I now have the job of convincing her or otherwise.   I gave him my blog address and considered the fact that a lot more people I know are obviously now reading this or at least know about it (then spent the rest of the evening going "argh the last entry I wrote was about my periods").

As an aside here, who do we know that reminds us of?  Uh, that would be me.  Most people reading this probably know but just in case - my friend Neil went on at me for literally a year, possibly (probably) longer that I absolutely *had* to try sailing.  And I spent that year telling him I wasn't interested.  In the end I said I would go once to try it and then he had to shut up about it.  That was in April 2006 and my third season as a member of sailability is slowly drawing to an end.

Pam then was telling me what she'd heard about my blog and who'd told her.  Literally two people were going "I hear you blog" and I was like "who told you that?!"  And I was thinking "Wow, someone got technosavvy in a week."  But though I doubt she read it, I am impressed she knows what a blog is.

Oh and then I was asked if the Oxford Mail could take some photos of me getting into the boat.  They are writing an article about the Pontoon Project, I think.  I was told they wanted pictures to show how difficult it is.  I told them they should have taken the photos last week in that case.  A few were taken of me sailing and John, my buddy this week insisted on adjusted my baseball cap as it was hiding my face as I had it (not deliberate, just how I wear it) "We want to see your face Emma".  I was sat there thinking "I need to wash my hair, I had no warning of this photo thing,  do NOT take it off me."

I think they wanted to show me getting into an access dinghy but I said no, they could take them of me getting into the challenger as that's what I sail.  I let them film me being hoisted into the acccess dinghy last November despite the fact thats not what I sail (it's what I sailed for the first year and a half of sailing then I switched to the challenger) and then regretted it.  I also made a comment about it not being a "look at how disabled she is" thing and they said it was kinda the point but the photog. said he would do something or other I forget what but basically the idea was not make it look too bad.  Plus I think the main focus is on Luke, not me.

So, to sum up.  Sail was muchos fun tonight and I don't think there will be too many of those nights left this year given the way the nights are drawing in.  But it was also on the surreal side.