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I
t’s early February before dawn, there’s
frost on the ground and two terriers, Bert
and Monty, are guarding a shed in a
quintessentially English country garden as
the church clock chimes the hour.
From within, comes a whooshing sound – and,
it has to be said, a bit of heavy breathing – it is
the sound of their mistress, Lesley Foden, who
is working out in the early hours – on a rowing
machine.
Lesley says that at first Bert and Monty were
terrified to see this ‘creature’ with a head-torch
tiptoeing into the shed in the dark before dawn.
When she emerged in the light they were
overjoyed to discover that there wasn’t a
one-eyed monster in the shed, it was just her
putting in some training.
This summer, Lesley will be embarking on an
1,800-mile journey rowing around Great Britain
– clockwise, and you could say backwards too,
because she will have her back to the direction
in which she is heading.
On June 3, at Burnham-on-Crouch, she will
step into the sleek rowing boat,
Liberty
, draped
with a Union Jack on the front, and start the
gruelling challenge, rowing 24 hours a day, two
hours on and two hours off, round the clock for
eight whole weeks.
Liberty
will stop seven times to change crew –
at Cowes, Padstow, Dublin, Oban, Lochinver,
Fraserburgh and Scarborough.
Depending on currents and waves the boat
could be either 150m or 60 miles from the
shore line.
If she survives sea sickness, strong coastal
currents, conflicting tides, whirlpools, huge
waves, crossing shipping lanes and perhaps
the odd submarine surfacing alongside, Lesley
will be arriving back, across the finish line,
where she started at Burnham-on Crouch, on
July 29.
When I ask her why she is putting herself
through this, she replies cheerily, “To see if I
can – and because I’m 60 this year.
“I also want to want to inspire older people to
exercise, raise awareness of plastic pollution
in the seas and to raise funds for Lifeboats and
Sea Changers”.
It’s fair to say that Lesley usually leads a
fairly uneventful life – she is an artist, painting
exquisitely-detailed still lifes of nature.
Lesley was drawing before she could write and
ever since she can remember she was always
drawing from nature.
Her dream as a child was to be Gerald Durrell’s
illustrator on his travels. She paints, for
example, bees, onions, flowers and animals,
in such detail that you are tempted to touch
them, they seem so real and have a richness
reminiscent of the Dutch style.
All at sea
Local artist Lesley Foden has just turned 60 and has set herself the challenge
of rowing round Great Britain, to raise money for the RNLI and Sea Changers.
ANGELA KNIGHT caught up with her between training sessions.
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