'Twas The Night Before Racing

And here we are! Finally, the first day of racing at Henley is over and tomorrow our first race will be under way.

We had the Queen drop in the other day

The Cup

We have been fairly busy since the Reading Regatta. We moved into our house in Henley with the lovely Brassey family. Brad, Henry and I stayed here two years ago and loved the family. Last time we had the house to ourselves but this time we are sharing with an American school, Belmont High School. They have an eight and a four that didn't make it through the qualifying round. With this lot, the house is full almost to bursting.

We have been trying to get used to the amount of people. As each day drew closer to the start, more and more crews turned up. Now there is hardly a time where you can get flat water. I'm surprised that there haven't been any more accidents as the water is flowing really fast still and there are some crews that aren't used to the traffic flow.

Lunch time rush hour

We have had a look at the draw and it looks like every race we are going to be on the Bucks station. This means we are on the far side of the course. In theory it is the slower side due to the way the river curves around the track, but I think we are looking at it as a bit of luck as this was the station that we won all of our races on last time.

The Officials' boats and the live race feed behind

Now that we have left the comforts of Shiplake, we have had to start looking after ourselves a lot more. Unfortunately there are no more wonderful breakfast sausages in seemingly endless supply. Instead it is back to reality, but it is also probably a good thing. It has meant that we are in the kitchen cooking, and even worse is that we have had to do our own ironing. Let's just say that some of us need practice.

Us with Tony at the Reception

Finally, we are very excited to be here. We had a great time at the Overseas Crew Reception (we were dressed appropriately this time) where we met a few other crews and a fair amount of the Stewards. Even better we bumped into West End's new Club President, Tony Gibson! It was great to catch up with him and no doubt he will be leading the chant come tomorrow. We also had a wander through the Stewards' Enclosure today and it is so cool to see everyone dressed in their blazers. We had a look at the trophy we are hoping to win. The saddest part was finding that a jug of Pimms is going to set us back £25.

Observing the racing

We will endeavour to represent West End with pride tomorrow and we will keep you updated. I think you can keep tabs on the results here.

Boys are in the kitchen ladies