Soleil

The sun came out today. Not in its usual way of late - peeking out from behind clouds, with the sky a dominant grey. No, today it was full-on, bright-in-the-blue-sky sunshine.

Paris seemed to finally throw back the duna, rub its weary eyes, take a full breath of the morning air and decide that, yeah, today was a good day to get out of bed.

Apparently, so did seemingly all of the city's population. It's like someone stepped on an ant's nest! I haven't seen so many people since the last of the sunny evenings last year. We even had fire engines - like, with the sun in the sky it's suddenly a good reason to have a BBQ in your living room where it's still warm. Good one, people.

Anyway, despite a very mild hangover from a fantastic champagne party last night (thanks Axa et les mesdames ambassadeurs!), the sun was all the encouragment I needed to go outrigging. I even got to use, for the first time, an OC1 without a rudder. A little tricky steering, I'll admit - people walking on the side of the Marne must've thought I was practising slalom without the markers - but heaps of fun. Until, that is, the last five metres before the pontoon when I got a little cocky, tried to do a tricky turn and - splash! - ended up in the river (the FREEZING COLD RIVER) in front of the rest of the crew (who were, as luck would have it, just coming in from their session).
Apparently, I gasped like a fish when my head surfaced - my mouth was all movement, no sound. All very funny for everyone else...and me, eventually, once I was able to breathe again.

So, farewell Winter!, you cranky, depressing old man. And hellllooooooooo Spring!

Well, almost.