Freeman Iceberg Race 7 - 19/12/2010

Alan awoke to a grim scene, dark grey skies, a flurry or two of snow and a complete lack of traffic on the road outside - no busses, no cars and not many pedestrians. It did not help that he was still suffering from a heavy head cold and thus not feeling the best, none the less something had to be done. The night before Alan had intended to phone Kay, the Race Officer and organiser of the series, before leaving to have a pond inspection. Once he saw the state of play he would phone her again to let her know whether to come along - she lives a lot closer than Alan.
As it happens she, Kay, forestalled him with a call at about 8.30am saying that she did not think it worthwhile as she expected the pond to be fully frozen over.  Alan had to concur with that presumption as the temperature had barely been above freezing all the preceeding week. He called round a few of the possible racers and Rupert Smith said that he would be going down to have a look and would phone him back. The outcome was that Rupert confirmed at least an inch (25mm) of ice covering the whole pond. The previous week's ice breaking would not have been sucessfull a second time.

Although these pictures - courtesy of Julian Dobson - show the situation at 10.00am they do not quite create the desolate scenes at Piddinghoe that morning. By the looks of it even the fisherman did not go along!
That leaves the Boxing day race, the final of the series and with the current weather conditions, on a knife edge in more than one way. Will it happen, and can it,  if it does will Laurence Venus snatch overall victory from Alan - they are but 0.3 points apart in the league table? It would be a pity not to be able to race but the Series prizgiving will take place (at Piddinghoe) provided every one can still access the pond.
The next scheduled race is due on New Year's Day - 2.00pm - with the Elford Numbum series starting the day after - 2nd January 2011 at 11.00am.
Freeman Iceberg Series Results Standing to date :-
1st. Alan Simmons - 4.7 pts, 2nd Laurence Venus -5.0 pts, 3rd. Paul Ryan - 12 pts, 4th. Rupert Smith - 20 pts, 5th. Steve Duncan - 20 pts, 6th. Julian Dobson - 24 pts, 7th. Michael Veale - 25 pts, 8th. Chas Humphries - 28 pts, 9th. Jonty Freeman - 28.5 pts, 10th. Davis Hitchens - 48 pts.

Alan.S 1700