It’s been a while
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| Winter, -18° dog walks |
This the first blog post I have written since November 2025, and I think I had better start with why…
If you have read many of these blogs, then you may remember that I am a long-term cancer patient. Every 12 months, the local health service takes some of my blood to check to see if I am OK, and usually I am.
That was until the end of 2025.
My blood was taken at the end of November, and I thought no more of it, I didn’t even check the results because I felt fine. Fit and healthy. So it was a surprise to get a call in mid December from a doctor who wanted to repeat the tests. I logged into my records pretty quickly after that call!
More blood was taken and the results confirmed that my prostate was misbehaving a little. And more blood tests were ordered, along with an MRI that was to be done as soon as possible.
After two months, with 5 appointments to see various doctors, I feel a bit like a pin-cushion that lost a fight in a needle factory but the general consensus is that I’m OK for now, and we’ll keep an eye on things.
Phew!
Now back to more interesting stuff.
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| SUP My Race paddlers passed 1,000,000km in 2025 |
All that medical uncertainty coincided with the start of winter, first it got cold, then came the snow and then it got REALLY cold, we had -20,3°C at the house, then to find out our external thermometer is reading a bit high, and it was -22°C that night
As a result, I didn’t paddle for 7 weeks, and that is tedious!
But I have spent many nights sleeping outside under the stars, my coldest at -13°C. I have tried to learn to ski again, Nordic Style of course, or XC with long skis, and I have enjoyed hundreds of KM of dog walks with two Labradors who are built for snow and ice! Especially the older one.
Naturally, this has not exactly helped my SUP training!
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| A warmer night at -6°C |
Now, as things start to warm up, I have some access to the sea. Although this is tricky as there is a lot of sea ice that has a habit of sneaking up on you and has the potential to block the way back. It also makes training harder. When you find that nice bit of flat water is actually solid, it tests your emergency pivot turns!
But Spring is on the way, there are hundreds of thousands of birds heading north, Cranes, Swans, Geese and more demonstrating their drafting skills overhead. And the land is waking up too.
My local river is not yet safe to paddle on, the flow from meltwater has made it a bit spicy but every day is a little longer than the pevious and things are warming up, slowly. No barefoot paddling for a while yet.
The NSP Carolina Evo has been out twice in the last week, albeit with a sick paddler recovering from flu, and I am glad to report that she still handles any conditions with aplomb. And my feet are toasty warm in my Solite 8mm Fire boots.
That’s it for now, training starts again next week and I’m SUPer excited to get back to it!
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| Northern Lights from my doorstep |