The biggest news for this month is that we have been given an old George Sims coxed pair clinker type for our 100km race in Amsterdam. It was given to us by Sudbury rowing club. It is in need of quite a bit of TLC but already it is looking much better as we have cleaned off the moss and dirt that had accumulated on it. Now we just need to sand off the old varnish, repair a few splits and varnish her up again. We are still not sure what crew weight she is but we will find that out when we re-launch her. That is why we are still on the lookout for another, we have heard there is one at Vesta rowing club but we have not heard back from them yet - fingers crossed.

We have been lucky with storing our boats as we have two - the old coastal pair we did the Boston marathon in last year and the coxed pair. My rowing partner and I both live on boats and the marina where we live (Port Werburgh in Hoo St Werburgh), near Rochester have kindly let us keep the boats there for free, as all these rowing challenges are for The Meningitis Trust, which is very nice of them at this rate we could start our own rowing club.

That might have to be the case as towards the end of last year I left Medway towns rowing club, so at the moment I have nowhere to row. We can row out of our marina but as it is situated on a massive mud bank this is really restricted as to tide times, as we do not have constant access to the river. So since October I have only had one river outing to date and this was a 10km row to get our coastal pair to our marina.

Renovations are going well on my old model B Concept2 and it is nearing completion, it's looking very good now.

As anyone who has read my blogs will know that when I was aged 10/11 I contracted bacterial Meningitis and was paralysed for about 12 weeks and suffered all sorts of after effects. When I was 29 I had a relapse and was paralysed again for a while. When this happened and after finding no help from the NHS it was suggested that I go to a cranial osteopath which I did. I found the brilliant Stuart Korth in Tunbridge Wells and he has been treating me ever since. This has always been on a fire fighting basis as it is not the cheapest of treatments but it works; now however I have been funded by the Meningitis trust for 6 treatments a year so this will keep me going without having to wait for things to get bad before I go!

On another medical issue I was contacted by a chap through the Concept2 website as I mentioned my hearing loss last time. He is an audiologist who works for the Hearing Centre in Sevenoaks and he contacted me direct to tell me that he could help. I had always been told that nothing could be done but with new technologies etc. it sounded positive. I went for a hearing test at the centre with Ken Fairly a lovely chap and fellow rower, firstly there was the rowing talk to get out of the way plus comparing challenges etc. Then there were a few intensive tests, he then worked out my hearing graph which is the exact opposite of normal hearing loss. He described normal hearing loss like a hall carpet - the carpet right by the front door is the bit that wears out first and as you go down the hall the wear is less. The same goes for hearing apparently. The higher sounds are heard near the outer part of the ear and over time sort of wear out and the deeper sounds are heard further in so they wear out more slowly. But my hearing is completely reversed; my deeper sounds are the ones that have been reduced and the higher ones not so much. This is as a result of having meningitis but thankfully they have been able to fit me with some fantastic hearing aids. It is taking a bit of time to get used to wearing them and I am not used to hearing so much, so everything seems noisier than before as I haven't really been able to hear like this since I was 10, so it's really quite odd.

Lastly the triathlon training is going quite well, I have been a bit ill again this month so have not been able to run as much as I would have liked but I have been able to get my swimming back to where it used to be. Years ago I used to swim competitively for Monson swimming club in Tunbridge wells, I represented Kent in a national schools swimming competition and had a trial for the youth GB water polo team but I haven't swam for years, so it has been nice to get back to it. By the time we get to the London Virgin Triathlon we should be more than prepared.

As always this is all for The Meningitis Trust so if you fancy donating here is my page.

Cheers

Darren

P.S. And here is a link to the Hearing Care Centre