Twitch

A gratuitous photo of Dad and Calstar, taken some time in the last few weeks. Has no other relevance to this post. Except, of course, it's about sailing with Dad. And Calstar.

Spent the last weekend ashore; a gig Saturday night (I try never to head out into the Bristol Channel, for however short a period, if I've evening commitments with the band, in case I can't make it back) followed by a trip out to London on Sunday afternoon to spend a lovely evening with an old school friend I hadn't seen in twenty-five years.

So I can't begrudge not sailing, and it should feel like all the time I've spent afloat last month should've made up for the slow start to the summer and apparent the sparsity of the weeks before. And I did get to race Buffy around the cans at Frampton last Wednesday. We had a fantastic start, beating the fleet to the windward mark by at least half a leg. We held our lead for most of the race, but our sad neglect of Buffy's maintenance is beginning to tell. She's developed a bit of a nasty leak around the centreboard case, and her old sails are, these days, pretty much blown.

Geoff and Sue aboard Ghost appeared to have had a bit of a shocking start themselves, but valiantly clawed their way back up through the fleet between us to chase us down, finally catching up and overhauling us at the gybe mark on the lap before last, forcing us to settle for 2nd place.

Ghost hasn't had it all her own way against us of late, so I can happily wish them the joy of that well earned win.

And, clearly, I have no call to begrudge a beached weekend.

But I can't help but feel a little twitchy.

No matter. I have no gigs next weekend. Nikki's sadly working, so can't come with us, but now she's a sailor she's ever so understanding of these things, so has kindly said she'll look after the dogs whilst Dad and I go away sailing.

Actually, being eternally patient with me, knowing me better than I know myself, she's always been understanding of these things and I try very hard not to take it for granted, but I'm pretty sure this time around she actually felt a small twinge of regret at not being able to come with us. I feel for her, poor thing.

So, down to the boat Friday evening. Don't know where we're going yet, but high water is around lunch time, so it's either an early morning sail up channel, or, more likely, an early afternoon sail down.

Weather permitting. And I so hope it does.