Got another go helming Lady Jane last night. At the end of our race Kevin says “do I want a go”; and in true Dibly style I replied “no, no, no, no ….. YES”. Unfortunately Kevin and Nick had to endure a torrent of me verbalising my thoughts (which I rarely do) - which seemed to be of the more colourful language type. It was brilliant though and at the end even though I was glad to hand the stick back to Kevin I want to drive her again…. SOON
Was a bad mistake that my head feels this morning; I blame Gurney personally. At about 2am (I can’t really remember what time it was) we decided that bedtime would be when the bottle was finished. This morning I realise this was not such a good idea. However it did manage to kick start my wind down from work, which was much needed.
We were supposed to be sailing this morning but our helm is still in bed and I don’t think we’ll be moving much before lunch time; which is fine as I truly and honestly think I am still drunk!
Right folks, if you know me you would not have escaped the knowledge that I am had an impending trip to the British Virgin Islands and more specifically the Island of Tortola. Well you no longer have to suffer my continual excitement and enthusiasm of the trip as we have arrived.
What can I say it’s just stunning an WARM, can I say that again; it’s WARM, warmer than the 8C cold, wet and miserable London that we left behind. Keep you eye on the site for updates as to our day to day shenanigans!
My brother Stuart passed into the Navy on Friday after 9 weeks of very grueling training that involved getting up at 04:30 and not stopping until 10:00. I’m so proud of him. Well done Stu.
I’ve joined another sailing club! Not left Thames SC. Island Barn sail all year round on the huge reservoir in East Mosley. I’ve moved my Solo up there and I think I will actually leave it there as I will probably get more sailing in it that way. Had an amazing time last Sunday, completely terrifying and exhilarating at once! I have NEVER gone that fast in the Solo before, I think I was even planning and I could really tell when on a run that lifting the centre plate had a marked difference on boat speed (whilst making it incredibly tippy). I made the start (last), and followed a bunch of toppers round the course as I really didn’t have a clue where I was going; two laps and no capsizing. Just making it round and out in one piece and dry was an achievement in itself. Looks like it’s going to be blowing a bit tomorrow - I may well get wet! Brrhhhh January falling in a cold reservoir - NICE!!!
Booked the holiday for this year, I actually haven’t been on a plane in over a year now. Which is incredibly seeing as how much of my working life was spent flinging my arse around the globe. Anyway we have a grand Thames Sailing Club trip to Tortola to compete in the BVI Spring Regatta. The boat is hired; a C&C 41 ft beasty…
…as is the villa; Summer Heights in Havers
My first proper sailing holiday after learning in 2006.
Had the girls down from Cambridge this weekend and we ventured into Kingston to start upon the up hill struggle that is Christmas shopping. After we’d had enough we stopped off at the German Christmas market that is currently residing in the Market Square; they had lots of lovely stalls and I bought myself two beautiful pashminas from a very enigmatic trader. We were tempted by the wonderful small of the Mulled Wine and thought we’d get some to warm ourselves up for the walk back to the car. Only to be stopped in our tracks by the shocking service from this particular stall.
To start off I had to pay £2.50 for each mug of wine, but when it came to pay it had magically increase by an additional £2; which I then assumed was the deposit you had to pay on the mugs and when I questioned this particular sales assistant as to where is was notified about said deposit; you abruptly told me it’s on the board - and when I looked conveniently written in small letters at the bottom was indeed the notice about the deposit. I said to her that it “might” be more useful if this notice was more clear; or even included in the price of the drink to which I got a torrent of abuse - the chap next to me even pipped up and said he’d actually had to go to the bank to get extra cash out because he didn’t have enough.
All of the people on this stall were exceptionally rude; it doesn’t take a huge amount of effort to change the sarcastic sniping back to customers to something much more pleasant along the lines of; I’m really sorry - I have made this clear to my manager; or it’s not my decision, and I am so sorry - but have a lovely day.
So…. don’t buy anything thing from this stall; it’s in the middle of the German Christmas Market that is running in the Market Square in Kingston upon Thames.
I might be being a bit “grumpy old woman”, but there is one thing I can’t stand in life; bad service - no need whatsoever. If you don’t like the job - quit!
When I keep asking my fellow Thames Sailing Club friends how I am going to improve my sailing they keep telling me “time on the water”. I am learning huge amounts from just crewing, but on Sunday we took Vagabond out for her final sail of the year before she’s tucked up in the sail shed for the winter. Paul and Karen Armitage and myself headed up to Hampton Court Bridge and got PRETTY close; if you’d been on the bridge all you would have seen was the top of a A Rater sail scoot past you (I think we must have been within a few inches!), and anyway on the way back Paul let me helm for a bit 
Each time I helm an A Rater it freaks me out even less, I was still wary yesterday mostly because Vagabond is 100 years old and I really didn’t want to ram her into the bank like a certain member of the Vagabond syndicate did last year 
I’ll mention no names. Well in this instance the wind was very light, but also quite nice at time so that all three of us did manage to get up and I didn’t completely mess up the tacks and didn’t have too many random gybes or tacks as the wind shifted, and of course most importantly I didn’t capsize her either.
All in all we had a gorgeous long sail; the weather was lovely and I came home beaming and a bit sleepy - not bad for a random Sunday afternoon.
Another excellent article by Ben Goldacre from the Guardian about a South African “scientist” who can pint point missing people on a map using his special magic box. Read on it’s very interesting…
Maddy’s been spending her evenings scanning in some really old pictures of my father’s side of the family, really interesting (from our perspective that is!)
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