Puff the Magic Dragon

lives by the sea, and frolics in the Autumn mist in a land called Essen-Kettwig (or something like that!) well we - 'Puff's Power Girls' frolicked alongside the Ruhr yesterday afternoon and partook of a Dragonboat Regatta.

Well we all showed up - 10 rowers paddlers, and one drummer girl so that was an achievement in the first place.  We were all appropriately clad in the PPG get up - pink hair, pink hoodie, tutu.... you get the picture!  And we were ready to rock (the boat) and roll (following a fortifying glass of bubbles!)



Eleven eccentrically clad expat ladies had entered a team in the local regatta - quite what we were thinking I'm not entirely sure.....  Five of us had managed to attend our one and only training session (so that left half the team sitting in a dragonboat for the first time yesterday) but we were all more than willing and so  buoyed up buy the Adrenalin and high spirits from the over-excited squeakiness that only 11 girls in pink can manage (and the bubbles of course!) we traipsed through town and down to the river - I'm not quite sure what the locals made of us - but we were very chatty with them en route....

How did we come to be in this predicament... well we have to thank Kettwigefrau and Lipstick&Laptop for their (drunken) suggestion that we ladies should mount a team (our own I mean here and not one of the Lycra clad real rowers......) and participate in the annual local regatta.  Having seen the flyer, we noticed the encouragement of fancy dress ( and indeed a prize for the most original) and of course most of our focus was on that and not the rowing.  We might have won the prize for the costumes (YAY!!!!) but for course we hadn't taken the racing seriously enough by half (this is Germany....) and of course we came last - 20 out of 20.  We were most disgruntled to have to race back to back for the booby prize as that meant we were somewhat delayed in reaching the beer tent......

But, do you know what - despite the ridiculous outfits and the shockingly poor paddling performance, we had an absolute ball!  We were out there - pink and proud and chatting away to all and sundry and I think we embodied the 'it's not the winning but the taking part' mantra!  We had a great deal of very welcome support from (some very embarrassed) friends and family  - Thank You All!

And so what next - well next year's regatta is already in the diary - but we're thinking a 20 man mixed team would be the way forward - but we need a good costume idea for the boys...... not sure pink and tutus is quite their thing!