Editing and Boat Races

Going great guns with editing my latest wip. The first three chapters are finally whipped into shape. Extraneous words like "just, only, almost," removed. POV checked. "Telling" changed to "showing." Fluff and useless info removed.  I think it is going to be called The Queen's Courier. Only another 20 odd chapters to go.

Excitement on the river on Sunday. The Rutherford Head of the River Race finally went ahead after having been cancelled on 6th December and again on 30th January. The first time was because of the flood conditions and the second time for high winds. They were extremely lucky, because we've had Storm Gertrude high winds every day this week except Sunday! It was beautifully calm, if not sunny, but the winds are  back again to day.

I walked the three miles or so from Wylam to Newburn with Tim, who ran off-lead most of the way with no trouble. Here he is behaving well as we watched a couple of boats whizzing by. I met Sandra and her family there - the gang, she calls them - Kate, Taya, Roshan and Sufian. Big brother Kieron was rowing for Edinburgh University. Evidently they'd had an accident with their boat, so didn't do too well.

People say this year's floods are unprecedented, but there are some chilling marks carved into the front wall of the Boathouse Inn at Newburn; markers for the height of Tyne floods in past years. Given that the inn stands some ten feet or more above the level of the river, one marker was waist high on me, one was chest high and the 1771 flood was way over my head. I remember that the town hall in Yarm had similar markers for when the Tees flooded, though I don't recall standing next to them.

DH picked me up so I didn't have to walk home. All in all I completed over 11,000 steps that day!