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Apologies for my absence from this blog for the last couple of months. I took a long holiday after the World Championships and travelled around Turkey and the Caucasus mountains, finishing with a week in , where one of my brothers lives.

It's a crazy city and I was quite relieved to leave relatively unscathed, with merely a collection of Russian words and a deep appreciation for vodka!

Since then, it's been pretty hectic with a trip over the pond to Massachusetts for the world's biggest regatta, the .

A group of fellow internationals got together and organised an eight, so Anna Bebington (now Watkins after her recent wedding) and myself ended up joining forces with two Dutch girls, three Yanks, a Kiwi and a Canadian to take the title in Championships Women's Eights event.

It was a fantastic event and a very memorable experience. That is one of the best things about sport - being able to keep the competition and the hate out on the water, and occasionally come together to just enjoy racing and celebrate rowing.

I will attempt to blog a bit more regularly from now on, but in my first one back I don't have anything earth-shattering to report so I thought I'd talk a bit about the books that have kept me going through training and racing.

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