I dreamt I was sailing with Ben Ainslie

I'm not really one to watch the weather forecast. My youngest Freddie has always been entranced by it, he rather likes Carol. I'm more of a look out of the window and wing it type of girl. On Sundays however, I open my window to see how much breeze floats in.

Well that's all changed since I've picked up the sailing baton. I watch it like a hawk. It is going to a be a westerly? That's dastardly at Olton Mere. How strong?  Oh how I obsess with those BBC wind arrows that shoot up and down the country.

This weekend was going to be a windy one, with Twitter and Facebook reports of races and squads been cancelled, my blood pressure was slowly rising. I had agreed with my sailing pal Matt that we would race the Vision in the Icicle Series. No. Wimping. Out.

I woke on Sunday morning, I'd been dreaming of sailing with Ben Ainslie. It was good. We even managed to dance the waltz that evening to celebrate. I opened my bedroom window, some habits die hard. My paper flew around my bedroom, my nerves raced around my body like an electric shock. Man, it was really windy.

I arrived, rigged, joked and laughed about my dream and we set of in the Vision. My heart felt like it my burst. God I was nervous. Matt is an excellent sailing partner for me, he largely laughs his way round the course and you can't help but join in. We survived the first race, one capsize. Nothing to write home about.

We walked into the clubhouse like conquering heros. Nothing. Seriously guys? Right, clearly we were going to have to do the 2nd race to earn our stripes. Deep breath, wee and chocolate and off we set again.

The winds seemed to have picked up even more. One monster gust and bang, over we went, I leapt onto the centre board, small moment of glory, the boat came up and Matt climbed in. Smiles. Timing possibly wasn't our finest virtue as we executed the second part of the capsize, as Matt pulled me in a we caught another gust and I was sent headfirst into the water closely followed by Matt. Oh crickey that was proper scary. I wanted to cry, this was a Daddy moment. Where was he?

We survived, but after final capsize of similar proportions with another headfirst dive we called it a day. Once back at the pontoon, Matt lay down too exhausted to move. Had we earned our stripes? Oh yes we had.