Hot off the Press

Tarkan's made it into the newspapers!!

http://www.enfieldindependent.co.uk/news/localnews/8922855.Channel_swimmer_in_bid_for_charity/

Cake Sale; 28/02/2011

Submitted by Danny. (Photo's as always, to the right)

After a long weekend of baking night and day I arrived in work Monday morning delighted to see the others had made similar efforts with their cake baking. 

- Hayley’s array of cupcakes made the most vivid of rainbow’s look black and white.

- Deniz’s (I mean Tarkan and Deniz’s) efforts could have supplied a bakery for 3 weeks complete with doughnut muffins, whoopee pies & carrot cakes. 

- Taras proved quite the crafty baker whipping up some delicious lemon butterfly cakes.

- Adam chocolate chipped in with cookies, butterfly cakes and his Nan’s homemade Victoria sponge!

I was obviously bread to bake and my buns went down a treat, providing the most shop-like of 

chocolate cupcakes and muffins.

After setting up in reception downstairs we very reasonably priced up our goods ready to sell to the generous workers in our building. Other than the position of our cake stall other measures were of course in place to ensure no one could avoid the wrath of ‘pressure charity cakes’.

These included mass emails and posters in both lifts and so unless you had pre-planned and brought your lunch in, there was no avoiding us. 

With these SAS tactics in place the produce went like hotcakes and soon we had made loads of dough (My thanks go to Laurence for that one), in fact by 2.00 pm they had all scone. 

There was however one complaint: that there weren’t enough tarts on sale but the muff-in more than made up for it.

Apologies to all for cheesy puns! Thanks to all who bought our cakes - £200 was eventually raised.

Day 4; Oasis Sports Centre, Nr Tottenham Court Road (28/02/11)

Submitted by Tarkan (Photo's as always, to the right)

Pay day had finally arrived and as Danny has explained with his entry we spent all lunch time flogging homemade cakes (apart from the Baker Boy Brand Danny managed to buy in the morning) in order to help both raise awareness of our upcoming Channel Swim and some funds to go towards our £10,000 target (If your reading this please feel free to check our progress and please give generously to our cause :

(http://www.justgiving.com/srlvchannelswim2011)

Well after a hard day at work, selling cakes at lunch time for charity and trying to stay awake in our Money Laundering training course, when the time on the computer said 5:30pm I think it was a safe bet to say we were all relieved despite the fact that we had to face a training session at the Oasis Sports Centre outdoor swimming pool whilst the weather conditions outside could only be described as Arctic.

When I said we were all relieved to see the time 5:30pm this wasn’t true for the entire team, as Taras, James and Jagdeep all had to stay at work late to make up for the lack of work they had did during the day (jokes, if any of their managers are reading this I am sure they worked hard all day like they usually do J).

Anyway myself, Danny and Adam left the office after deciding it was best to get changed at the office first (based on the adventures of our last visit to Oasis Sports Centre). On the way Adam received a quick phone call from Rosie with a TFL update that the Jubilee line was up the spout and would therefore be running late. We later received a further TFL update from Rosie that the Jubilee line was in fact inoperative and she would therefore not be able to join us (Thanks for the reliable service TFL). 

When we arrived at the pool we met our newest recruit , Yvette (former Everest Climber, Marathon runner and Tri-athlete). She got us all in the pool not before we were charged down by the screeching lifeguard performing Rafa Benitez style hand signals which even Rafa would have struggled to understand. The signals were a mix between a chimpanzee scratching his head and a cat licking his balls which could only mean we had to have a quick shower before we were allowed to enter the pool (again showers not such a great idea based on our last adventures at this swimming pool).

Anyway, Yvette put us through our paces with an 8 length warm up and various training drills, including the one arm pull, a bit of underwater swimming and some heads up swimming whilst trying to dodge the annoying swimmers in our lane who appear to love swimming on top of each other or literally up each other’s , well, you know.

Jagdeep “The Trooper” Kooner managed to get away on a coffee break from work and joined us in the pool for a while before returning to work to seal some big money deals for his company. (Note to everyone wasting chargeable time reading this learn from Jags “Money never sleeps” now finish reading this quick, give us a little or big donation depending on how generous you’re feeling and then get back to work). With James missing, the responsibility was left to Yvette to say time to get down to the pub at the same time as a gust of wind blew in our ears hissing advice of “only have a quick one”. 

We left Danny and Jags in the pool to get a few more laps in whilst us 3 left to go get ready for the pub. Danny came out of the swimming pool complaining of getting something in his eyes, based on the type of people who use the swimming pool I didn’t want to ask to many questions as I was scared of the possible answers but my advice to Danny “The Length” Fletcher is invest in a pair of goggles quickly. 

Down to the pub where we got to know Yvette better and explain the situation of our future training weekends, by the way have we booked our accommodation yet or are we gonna be pitching up tents on the beach like the troops did in Normandy (and like we plan to do come September)?!?!?!?!?!? 

Adam made the error of getting the first round in and one pint just not being enough to quench my thirst after such a long training session and ignoring the voice of reason nagging in the back of my head (the missus) I decided to get another round in. Perhaps training sessions and a group drink up is better suited to Fridays.

So, Adam  . . . . . .  when’s the next team training session down the pub, I MEAN DOWN THE SWIMMING POOL?