As May Week drew to a close, the enthusiastic and only slightly crazy members of Churchill boat club thought it would be fun to go on one final outing. It was also nearly the summer solstice, so the slightly crazy idea was to meet at the boathouse at 3.30 (in the morning of course) and to push off as early as possible.

Lighting down was officially at 3.59, and given the rather early hour everything had to be done as quietly as possible. Getting the boats out was done with the minimum of noise and we decided not to use the cox boxes until past the Railway Bridge. This meant commands were passed down the boat with chinese whispers, and made what we were doing seem even more bizarre!

Lorna is eager to have a go at stroke

By some miracle of organisation we had ended up with exactly 2 coxes and 12 rowers, so everyone managed to fit comfortably into Pink Lady and Lady Bondii. The crews were mixed, both in terms of gendre and skill level, with a wide range from two experienced M2 rowers to three M4 rowers who hadn't been in a boat since Lent term!

Once down past the Railway Bridge the real fun began. There were several unusual races, including a backing it down race, and we then went further downriver and we pulled in just past First Post Corner to allow some seat swapping to take place.

First to have a go in the cox's seats were Dimitar and Ben, while Lorna enthusiastically took up stroke's blade in Pink Lady. Several of us also opted to try rowing on the opposite side to that which we normally do, and our attempts must have made the new coxes job even more difficult!

After spinning at the lock we went back to the Reach and swapped seats again, with several others satisfying the hidden desire of all rowers - to have a go at coxing. There were several more races, and on several occassions Lady Bondii managed to defy the odds and draw substantially ahead of Pink Lady.

By this time the Sun had been up for a while, and despite it not even being 6 o'clock we decided to call it a day and head back to the boathouse. It had been a fun couple of hours for everyone and a great way to round off the rowing year.