Swan Lake

There are few things more fabulous than large tattooed blokes wearing tutus and pink tights and Dragon Boat racing.

It was even more entertaining when they were walking around the day-camping site, but I didn't want to get smacked.

Over £25,ooo was raised for the Anthony Nolan Trust at Sunday's Norwich Dragon Boat Race. Our team -- Stan's team, The Pedantic Smart Alecks -- came 19th out of 21 teams.

The Race was at Whitlingham Broad, just outside of Norwich in Trowse. A broad is a lake, usually signifying man-made in some way. Most of the broads in Norfolk are a result of the peat digging in the Middle Ages, but Whitlingham Great Broad is a new creation, being used as a quarry until the end of the 20th century.

Like myself, some readers (if there are any of you left since I am currently such a bad on-the-ground correspondent) may not be acquainted with 'Dragon Boat Racing'. It involves long boats with room for teams of 12 -- 10 rowers, one drummer, one helmsman. The helmsman is (for events like this, with loads of novices) provided by the organising company. The drummer sits on a precarious little chair at the front of the boat and... um, drums. It is meant to keep the rhythm of the rowing, since it is imperative to row in synchronisation in order to reach optimal speed, but a lot of the time the whole thing just went higgledy-piggledy. On other boats, of course -- we were actually doing pretty good after our initial row out to the starting point in the middle of the lake.

The racing begins with each team doing 3 heats, with 3 teams in each heat. The top 2 times of each team are averaged and the top 9 teams compete in the semi-finals, with 3 teams in the final (to R, very tight finish -- the winners were 2/10 of a second faster). The course is 40 meters long... and that is a whole heckuva lot longer than you think and than it looks. Sadly, we were not as buff as the rugby teams and other groupings of powerful human specimens, but it was still a Grand day out!

Swan Lake (pink tutu-ed tattooed persons, above) won in both the Best Dressed Category and overall.

We will be there next year, but it is yet undetermined if E will be dressing in tights.