Geneva: Penelope's land

The second island to the right is Ithaca. 

I had hoped we could stop for to explore, but problems with the boat's water pump and a visit from an engineer to fix it delayed us in Syvota.

So instead, we simply slip by in the night.

Geneva: Syvota

Full moon rising, very welcome company for when we depart for a night sail to Navpaxos later on this evening.

Geneva: the South Ionian

This is beautiful country.

Geneva: vanity

I'm not big on "selfies" but this self-portrait was irresistible yesterday. If only to remind myself come the dark depths of the coming winter as to what my face looks like at 9.5 knots with blue skies, waves, a good breeze and fine company.

Geneva: 39° 02.6 N 020° 25.8 W North Ionian

Departing Gaious on the Ionian island of Paxos, heading southeast to Syvotta for tonight and then island hopping over to Ithaca for the day after.

"Geneva" is a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 389, and she is a pleasure to sail. We had 20 knots and a big swell to play with for the crossing from Corfu to Paxos yesterday, and we're hoping for more of the same when the wind fills in later today.

Flight

In common with sailing, I don't think I could ever grow bored of flying. And in common with sailing, it's as much the act itself as the means of achieving it.

I have a good book to read, but I've not made much progress as, as per usual, I've not yet been able to tear my eyes away from the view.

to all things their season

 

I don't normally write much about the "day job" here. In any case, my company has it's own website, so can speak for itself to any that might be interested. If I do write about it here, it's never anything to do with the work but is instead generally about with the beautiful old mill we're lucky enough to be based in.

One of the obvious impacts of Covid is that everybody who can now works from home. I've held fort here throughout with a skeleton crew to keep the phones answered and our networks and servers ticking over, but we sent our staff home the week before lockdown and they've worked from home ever since. We're lucky insofar as almost all of what we do can be done remotely so it's had no impact on our business.

If anything, we've been busier throughout.

But it's clear the fifteen souls that work for us no longer need the 4000 square feet of office space to house them. Even once all this is over we've no intention of resuming the previous expectation that everybody will report into the office 9 till 5, five days a week anymore, but will instead move to a hybrid model of so many days a week in the office, so many days at home.

And our lease is up for review in April. So as of then we're moving to a fully serviced office of about a quarter of the floor space in a trading estate on the edge of town. It's not without some considerable regret. St Mary's Mill is a beautiful place to work and we've had a sanctuary here for more than seventeen years. I consider our landlady Jenny and her late mother Audrey, from whom she inherited the stewardship of this lovely old building earlier this year, to be friends.

But it is right for our business.

I shall miss the trout in the mill race, the deer in the field, the occasional kingfisher and heron; we even had an otter once, although the trout became a bit scarce for a few weeks following his visit.

And I shall miss watching the trees on the far side of the valley each year slowly fade with the autumn to match the rusted hue of the corrugated iron roof of the derelict old steam house next door.

I'm away for the next two weeks. It's quite likely the leaves will have turned and fallen by the time I'm next in the office. 

I haven't travelled abroad since about 2003, and so decide of all things to do so in the middle of a global pandemic. But the temptation was too great. Dad and I are sailing a Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 389 called "Verona" from Corfu to Athens with Mark and Vernon, a couple of friends from my sailing club in South Cerney.

By about this time tomorrow Dad and I should have landed at Kapodistrias Airport in Corfu and be well on our way to meet the boat at Mandraki Marina. 

I can't wait.

12 minutes of your life you'll never get back

A friend summed it up nicely, "2020, the year the bins went out more than us". However, bucking the trend of this year's theme, Nikki and I did get to go out Friday night. 

As I've probably previously mentioned, my daughter and her fella run a pub in Cheltenham called The Restoration. Since about mid September, they've started hosting "open mic nights" again every other Friday. To the uninitiated, it's basically a gig where anybody can turn up and have a go, but only the guy supplying the PA gets paid.

Or in normal times, that would be the case. In this modern age, you have to book your table and your slot to perform in advance, and demand is high so you'd better get in early. And you have to bring your own kit; no borrowing microphones or instruments anymore.

In that bygone age of innocence back at the beginning of this year when you could just turn up, ask for a spot and borrow the organiser's guitar, I did a few of these with my brother. In part to support Tash and Dan with their new pub, in part because it was a pleasant change from the pressures and expectations of the band.

Now "the Big C" no longer means quite what it did a year ago, we're all socially bemasked and isolated from other human contact, and all my gigs appear to have been cancelled for the foreseeable, the fact that the Resto has resumed their open mic nights has provided a bit of a lifeline and release for me, and I suspect more than a few others.

Anyway, this Friday just gone I stuck my phone on a table before I went up to take my turn and pressed record. Sorry about the quality of the noise - and not so much about the quality of the performance; it's true, I have no shame.

In any case, if you chose to press play and spend twelve minutes of your life you'll never get back watching what follows, the three songs from Friday were:

Be More Kind, by Frank Turner
Goodnight Salvador Dali, by yours truly
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), by Greenday

birthday season

We took a ride down the motorway yesterday evening to visit my eldest son Ben whose birthday falls next Monday, and his partner in crime Hannah. On the way down we took a slight diversion through Cheltenham to pick up his sister Tash, who had the night off from the pub.

Hannah cooked us all  a lovely supper of spaghetti bolognese, and Nikki brought him a cake. None of us thought to provision the evening with any candles (and I honestly couldn't tell you how many would've been officially needed - somewhere between 20 & 30, I think) but Hannah improvised a fix so all was saved.

It was the second night running I've had spaghetti; the night before I'd dropped around to our guitarist's house for an evening jam with our guitars, and he'd fed me with the same. To be honest, it's one of my favourite meals; left to my own devices I'd probably eat pasta every night and spaghetti bolognese is one of those few dishes I can cook myself without breaking a sweat.

That said, the deliciousness of the last couple of nights' suppers have demonstrated that, as far as my own cooking goes, I really ought to up my game.

As we got into the car to set out for the evening, Nikki reminded me that the 15th was Mum's birthday. My youngest son Sam's birthday falls just over a week after his brother's on the 27th. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness aside, October has always been first and foremost birthday season.

within the big story

I am a man of relatively simple (arguably unsophisticated) literary tastes. I very much enjoy a good tale, an escapist distraction. I read compulsively, anything I can get my hands on. In the absence of any other available distraction, I'd read the ingredients list on a cereal box if I had to.

As long as I had my reading glasses. These days my near sight isn't what it used to be, and seems to deteriorate annually.

So all my reading is done electronically. But then that does mean my book is always to hand in my pocket now, and should I finish a particular episode in an ongoing series in the dead of night, the following book is always immediately available at the touch of a finger to a screen.

It does sadden me as to what that must've done to the high street bookshop. And I am entirely complicit. But then that's just a small cameo of the greater peril of our times. And again, I am entirely complicit. Although I can say I've never actually bought a car, boat or guitar online.

I read an interesting interview with Bernard Cornwell on the Guardian's website this morning. He's one of my favourite modern authors. Very much looking forward to reading the final instalment of The Last Kingdom, and utterly delighted to read that he's revisiting Sharpe; the latter was, back when books were published on paper and virtuously purchased on weekend trips to town in high street bookshops, my gateway drug into the world of Cornwell.

He makes the observation that historical novels generally have a big story and a little story. Obviously a winning formulae, because that describes every book he's ever written and I've read and loved them all.

I often wish I'd had the time, focus and patience to write a book. I'd like to think I'd have the talent. And I guess without the commitment to actually do it, I can happily go on telling myself that without risk of disproving it.

Tuesday blues

Generally speaking, I habitually have a fair level of indifference to anything with four wheels.

No wheels and it could be a boat and you have me, totally. And that should come as no surprise here.

One wheel, and it could be a glider. I may have found the sea before I found the sky, and the sea may still hold me for now, but we had a love affair, one for which I remain unapologetic and to which I am committed one day to return. When either the sea releases me, or the opportunity of more time finally presents.

Two wheels and, despite the fact I'll probably never ride one again, it's a motorbike. And I do still truly miss riding the dangerous, lethal, crazy things. And the excuse to wear black leather.

Three wheels and it could be the undercarriage of an aircraft. So you still have me; even if it has an engine, it still flies, and flight is, in any form, poetry.

But four wheels? It's just a car. A tool I use to get from A to B, a tool that makes all the other interesting things possible when you get there. But still just a tool.

A boat, a glider or a motorbike is, for me at least, all about the journey and not so much the destination. A car patently is not.

I collect my next car at 1700 this afternoon. And I find that, despite myself, I am actually excited.

I guess it's been a long time since I last had a blue one.

Calstar: staying local

Sunday morning was bright, a brief shower first thing, then blue skies and a brisk off-shore wind that started relatively light, more so whilst we were still within the shelter of the harbour, it has to be said, and then built to a gusty F5 by lunchtime. 

Blowing out over the land it was shifty and unpredictable, but the sea state within the shelter of the Sound was very flat.

We took Ben and Hannah out for a couple of hours; across the Sound to Cawsands with Hannah and Ben sharing the helm, out through the Western Entrance, along the outside of the Breakwater, then back in through the east side. A couple of tacks along a beat into what was now a stiff F5 on the nose, and then we put the sails away and motored back in.

A lovely morning's sailing, followed by an uneventful drive home.

That will be the last time we get down to the boat until sometime into the latter half of November I expect. It's not all bad though. Chance and pandemics permitting, Dad and I fly out to Greece on Saturday 24th, meet a friend in Corfu and spend a couple of days on a yacht he's been chartering for the last few weeks. 

Then another friend from the sailing club joins us and we deliver said yacht, in company with a few others similar vessels, back to its winter berth in Athens via the Corinthian Canal.

I've got no idea if the weather out in Greece is warm enough late October to top up my suntan. But it's got to be warmer that it'll be over here by then at the very least. 

That said, I did bring my waterproofs back from the boat, and I shall be taking them out there with me.