Enjoy the Journey, not the end game

Its 10pm, Friday 28th September 2012.

Like many, you are probably thinking "The channel swim should be over by now for Nikki and the team!, Should I ring? Did it go ok? The weather has been awful!"

So, who knew.. Who knew except our Pilot, who chose to not proactively tell us, that the week you choose to swim the channel is 'Just a guide'. Just a guide, towards which you have been training for 18 months, towards which your wonderful friends coalesce, travel from canada, and call, write, connect with you to see 'how it's going'....

In all other walks of life a date is a date (well, let's face it except childbirth).. But not this one - Mother nature truly has her fist wrapped around this one, deciding what weather shines or blows through, and in this case this is the daily reports that we were being issued:-

Dover -- Shipping Forecast - Issued: 0405 UTCMon 24 Sep Gale warnings - Southwesterly storm force 10 expected soon Wind -- Southeast 5 to 7, veering southwest 7 to severe gale 9, increasing storm 10 for a time.

i've no idea what that means but gale force 10 seems just a little extreme to me! Despite the sunshine in Great Kingshill with my amazing friend Claire from Vancouver and I having a lovely swim at the local Lido (temperature 21 degrees, and she has a new appreciation for how cold that is - remember we'll be swimming in 17 maximum, and that's warm compared to what we've been swimming!) The channel has had other ideas.

If we reflect and wonder why this has happened, I have to reflect on our real ability to be able to cope with the challenge, Niki and Bridget were both pretty ill last week after managing olympic activities and major organisational change initiatives respectively, and I have definitely been feeling weak and odd as I have been dealing with my fathers death last week. Poor Sarah was the only one really ready, so perhaps Mother nature was taking care of us? For me, the gift of a week to spend at a different pace, being a tourist in london and sharing memories and moments with Claire that wouldn't have been possible if the swim had happened as expected.

Our Pilot has told us he believes we'll swim before christmas, OMG, We seriously hope so, can you imagine a snowball fight one day and swim the channel the next? October is often good weather, and apparently the Neap tide is not all its cracked up to be - or perhaps it is, but if we want to swim, it'll just be a bit harder!...

So, To those of you who have sponsored us, to know our spirit is still FULLY ON! we are swimming in the serpentine in Hyde Park tomorrow morning at 8am - if you have been in the UK this week, it's not warm... swimming will continue and our commitment to our various charities does too. Yet another wonderful friend of mine died this week from cancer, and his wife asked me to swim for him, He was called Mike (the same as our Pilot), I'll absolutely swim for you, just have a word up there to make sure we can!!

We are also having a seabreezer dinner tomorrow night, to just stay deeply connected to each other, and perhaps celebrate the opportunity to extend this challenge and these relationships a little longer. Niki Lemon, Sarah Moralee, Bridget Gisby and Peter Frost, you are all wonderful special people, I can't wait to swim with you.

A reminder once again, that the journey is as important as the end game, as my strength and power return it's each day that matters.