On leaving the office on Friday evening, a colleague who trains and competes with Colombo Rowing Club told me about Saturday’s 50th Royal-Thomian Regatta. Steeped in history, this is a competition between Royal College (a selective entry boys’ school located in Colombo that started as a private school but in 1836 became the first government-run secondary school for boys in Sri Lanka), and St. Thomas’ College (a selective entry private boys’ school that counts four former Prime Ministers of Sri Lanka amongst its Old Boys).

With Rennie leaving to join an out door zumbathon elsewhere in the city, I took Míša and Emilka – by Tuk Tuk, of course!

What we found on arrival was a real sense of occasion, though a bit bewildering initially for the children in the sticky humidity; crowded by the waterline that we managed to make our way through to; crowded on the lawn; crowded at the bar; music pumping at full volume from powerful loudspeakers; spectators cheering their respective team’s anthem with sufficient intensity to make the ears ring as the finish line was reached; competitors giving their absolute everything in this most brutal of endurance sports – and all with true sportsmanship, and in the calm between races, plenty of properly spoken old school English.  Just lovely.

A DJI Phantom drone was being flown to capture each race and I’d love to see the resultant video that is no doubt being produced; time to speak to my colleague, methinks! 

The evening brought watching the England-NZ rugby world cup semi final and an epic win, so all in all it’s been a great day – though at 04:28am on the next day as I write this sentence, perhaps it’d be a good idea to get some sleep now!  Good night!

Steve