July 11th

Well its been a while since we updated the website, such a crazy month with so much to do - not sure where all the time has gone. I am siting writing this with my third vodka in hand waiting for Dave to return from Krakow on a relatively sunny evening in Kingswear Marina. I have summarised our journey round on the latest news page - you can see we have had an eventful few weeks, it has been nice to be in one place for a few days even if a little odd being on the boat on my own. Dave left on tuesday morning, so it has just been the kids and I and lots of english rain - is it any wonder I am on my third vodka! I will quickly summarise the last few weeks, or at least the key events and we will try to be a little more diligent about keeping this up to date - we have even had a few complaints about our tardiness! Anyone would think we had nothing better to do!

July 8th - 11th Dave left early on tuesday morning and the last few days can be summarised as feed kids, teach kids, feed kids, teach kids, sleep!

July 7th - Spent day packing ,teaching kids and printing off Dave's papers for his trip etc. In the evening he and I went across the river to the nice restaurant I had booked for my parents at the weekend. Great meal!

July 6th - After a very tearful goodbye we started tidying up the boat and doing our sunday jobs! Dave's parents were supposed to have been arriving on Sunday aftrenoon but with the weather fiorecast predicting more of the same Dave had phoned his parents and put them off. Thank God given what happened next!!

July 4th - 5th - With the weather promising to blow up into a real storm, Marg and Dave left and my Parents arrived for their first visit! I was really worried, dad gets seasick if the boat is lolling about and because the weather was so bad the boat was rolling around so much on her mooring  that it took him awhile to settle down - he is also a big man, so his presence seemed to fill the boat in a way we weren't used to!! Despite the weather, we had a great weekend, Jordan caught some mackeral so I filletted those and we got fresh crab in Dartmouth and had a nice boozy lunch on the boat on saturday while the gale raged ouside! We dried our clothes, and dressed for dinner, again I had booked a nice restaurant on the other side of the river, but the weather was so bad we were concerned the ferries were going to stop running and we would not be able to get home later that evening so we opted to stay on the Kingswear side. Unfortunatley the restaurants aren't that great on this side and we ended up in the Royal Dart, not known for its fine food! But we were dry and after a few games of Pool and my mum discovered the Poker slot machine so in the end a good time was had by all!

July 3rd - Dave Wilson stayed on board for the final leg round to Dartmouth, and I went back to Lyme Regis with Marg to do my washing and some shopping. You know those basic pleasures that I actually miss! We promised (and failed!) to be on the dockside ready to take a line when they sailed into Dartmouth.

July 2nd - Left Yarmouth and set off for Weymouth. Very excited as were were meeting up with Marg and Dave in the evening. Marg and Dave are our best friends and are really the ones who got us into sailing and given all of their committments and our timetable changes we had yet to get together so that they could see the boat, so I needed to make sure we got into Weymouth early so we could get her scrubbed and presentable for our first boat knowledgeable guests! Arrived in Weymouth in pouring rain and moored up in outer harbour, right in the town centre - great place.

July 1st - During our trip to Cowes we had tried to get the water maker wortking and failed - so after a few phone calls back to Foxes we agreed to take a detour up the river to visit the dealers who were based at Saxon Wharf in Southampton. With that done and after a very thorough lesson on how to operate our latest piece of technology we set off back down the river.  

June 30th - Set off for Cowes, arrived about 5.30pm No real time to look round the place but not sure i'd be in a rush to go back.

June 29th - Decided to have a very British holiday day with the kids. Got the little train along the seafront to Brighton Pier, unfortunately dogs are no longer allowed on piers! (Has the world gone mad!) so the kids went off on their own to explore and Dave and I sat and had fish and chips in a little cafe on the beach. When we got back we decided to go and visit another couple we had met in eastbourne the week before - they had a motor boat called 'Freelancer' and they could drink us under the table!

June 28th - up and away to Brighton, felt good to going home! But very odd to be leaving the Midlands knowing we would not be back for awhile. Met up with an old work colleague who was on holiday in Brighton.

June 27th - Last frantic day in the midlands, Dave desperatley tried and failed to get his TR running, in the end he delivered it to his good friends Pete's on the baclk of the trailor - we just ran out of time - simple as that! Left Mum and Dad's and went to stay with more friends for our last evening. Had a lovely evening with John and Halina, John is the father of Indy's best friend Lauren so the kids also had a good evening in John's hot tub. Also dropped the Mercedes off (we had dropped the jeep off the previosu week on a trip down to Ipswich)  - we then became offically car less. More goodbyes.

June 26th - I had a fab day at Wildmoor spa - the last chance I had to taste a little luxury, and use the voucher Dave bought me for christmas, oh how wonderful it was to have aday off teaching the kids!!! Last evening at my parents and we had a surprise for them. They are both avid masterchef fans so I had booked us a table at Purnells in Birmingham. Unfortunatley mum wasn't well so we had to cancel - will try and do it at christmas - they have been so good to us, it will sad to leave - I have enjoyed being 'home' for awhile I must admit.

June 25th - Dave cleared garage out at Cruisehill, I caught up the kids schooling. Had a lovely meal with Mary and Simon in the evening - another goodbye.

June 24th - Collected hire car form brighton marina and drove to London where we wasted 5 hours of our lives queuing in the US embassy for a US visa! The only good thing to come out of the day wa sthat the day before Jordan had come across the word buearucratic in his business studies GCSE and I was struggling tomake him understand what it meant.... ! Left emabssy in the hire car, I drove back to Midlands with the kids and Dave got a train to Ipswich to collect the Merc which had been left there when we sailed out of Foxes.