The power of positive thinking

Will someone please tell the weather it's June, and therefore driving rain, howling winds and nary a ray of sunshine is highly inappropriate? To be fair, if the trade-off for the current conditions is a wonderful balmy calm July, then I'd make that deal in a heartbeat, but somehow I don't think there can be any guarantees. This is what I've been reduced to: day-dreaming of hypothetical weather trades and an obsession with the web-page for Sandettie buoy (which gives the water temperature in the Dover Straits). It's a sad state of affairs, and not much consolation to know that approximately 120 other channel aspirants are in the same state.

Last weekend was horrid weather again. The water temperature had reached 15.1 degrees, but that benefit seemed to be entirely wiped out by the windchill factor. Nonetheless, we got stuck into a 7hour swim, feeding after 2 hours and every hour thereafter (maxim, as ever, but also bananas and chocolate mini swiss rolls - the latter didn't work for me, they seemed to be difficult to eat and I was left with bits in my teeth for the next hour. I'm thinking Jaffa cakes instead...). It was never a comfortable swim. Whilst my feet came back to life around the 3hr mark, the cold was always nagging at me. I left the beach horribly aware of how much the conditions can help or hinder you.

Sunday morning weather was like Saturday's - except worse. More rain and more wind, but oddly, less chop in the water. 6 hours was the target, but I didn't come close. Despite psyching myself up til my brain was like a trailer for a Rocky film, by 3 hours I had all-over shivers and came in. Rather than try and toss me back in, Barry fed me something hot and walked me up the beach so I must have looked somewhat pitiful.

Not surprisingly, this left me with a huge confidence crash. I spent Monday in a morose state, and then emailed Freda for advice. She sent me a lovely supportive email on Tuesday morning, full of confidence in me, which has helped me a lot (interestingly, she said NOT to put on any weight - you don't want to lug anything to France you haven't trained with). I am trying to banish the negativity and think strong, positive thoughts. Here's how my current thought process is working:

- if I can swim 7hours in crappy conditions whilst cold, then on the day I must be ae to swim at least 10
- 10hours should put me within a few miles of the coast. Once it's right there in the line of sight, that must help. I know with fatigue and the current, a mile can take over an hour at that stage, but once I'm that close I think I can dig in.

And anyway, the end of July is going to be gorgeous weather, just wait and see!

Outside of swimming (not that there is much life outside of swimming right now) things are good. Matt is not too busy and Bug is on good form. He watched his daddy climb the stepladder to change a lightbulb and immediately copied him - he has no fear, I think I have it all for him - and now the stepladder is his favourite thing in the world. I can think of less terrifying objects for him to want to play with!

Three and a half weeks to go, and counting.