Molly's Blog - 24th February 2011

Hi everyone

Yet another one of my crazy weeks – so what’s new? Well, at least I now have someone to share them with - yes, Bec’s here at last. I gave her one whole day to settle in and get over the jet lag, and then dragged her out for dinner last Friday night with a bunch of people from work, so that was a good way to start to her new life!

On Saturday, a friend had planned a big exercise adventure through the Lakes District for his birthday.  It's a great way to see this beautiful Cumbrian countryside.    Saturday was raining and freezing cold and our adventure turned out to be a 13km run up and around a mountain.  It was some introduction for Bec - welcome to the UK!

We finished up at a local pub, absolutely covered in mud and we had to wade in the stream outside to clean up before we could go inside. We were totally soaked through and spent the next hour in front of the fire trying to dry out! It was a great adventure.

On Sunday we caught up with Martin and Alan from CA1 Sport who are the team that will be running the Fiesta R2 for us in the UK. They are based in Carlisle, about 45 minutes from Cockermouth.

On Monday it was back to work for me, and into organising mode for Bec, who was sorting out the logistics for our first event as well as trying to get her bank account organised to get money from Australia - not an easy task!

We left Cockermouth today and headed south towards Poole, to get ready for the Sunseeker Rally, the first round of the British Rally Championship which is on this weekend.  Cockermouth, where I live, is in the north west of England, not far from the Scottish Border and Poole is near Bournemouth right down the bottom of England about 400 miles away.  And of course, it couldn't be plain sailing, could it? We stopped at a hotel for the night and found it flooded, with no power and no hot water. As I write this, we're about to head out for some dinner and we're hoping there will be some hot water for a shower in the morning.

We'll be up early for shakedown and recce and that will really be the first chance for Bec and I to work together and check how we go on notes. We have been driving around local roads doing some practise but it's not really the same.

We are really looking forward to the rally.  I haven't done a rally since September, so the focus is really to get back into the rhythm. It's just going to be so good to get back into it. I think we're both conscious of how close the first WRC round is, and how much we have to do to be at the level we know we can be, and that we need to be at, for that event.

So we're just using this weekend as a shakedown for us as a team, to sort out as much as we can, and find our rhythm.

Will be back with the round up after the weekend..

Cheers

Molly