I didn't sail this weekend. I'd planned to race my Laser at South Cerney, but Saturday night's gig was a late one so, to my shame, apathy leading to a general reluctance to get out of bed on time Sunday morning defeated me. The unseasonably cold forecast of around 6°c for the day possibly also had something to do with it.
As did the fact that my wife, usually, had the Sunday off work. So, when I eventually got up, I took Nikki out to lunch in town instead.
Her dad, Harry, turned 80 on Saturday. Of course, I had a gig Saturday evening, so the party was deferred until Sunday afternoon when the kids joined us, and we we took him and Nik's mum Lil over to my brother-in-law's house in Stroud for what was, essentially, a tea party. Albeit an alcoholic one for those of us who were not the designated drivers.
It was a lovely evening.
This Wednesday, I took a (literal) rain-check with Amanda and skipped racing with her at South Cerney, and instead revisited my old club at Frampton-on-Severn to catch up with some old friends and crew for my mate Geoff in his Enterprise "Ghost".
The weed is beginning to make its presence known, but hasn't yet reached the surface, so the whole of the lake was still available to race on. Very light conditions coupled with persistent rain drawing in for the evening supressed enthusiasm amongst the general Wednesday evening fleet, but seven boats were still there on the start line.
We made a good start, taking advantage of the very port biased line, and made it to the windward mark first. A little confusion over port and starboard led to us almost rounding it the wrong way, but Geoff recovered well with a quick gybe that brought us back around to the right side and put everything right.
We then maintained our lead for the rest of the race until the penultimate leg of the last lap, when Mike snuck past us on the downwind leg in his Laser. But we clawed it back on the final beat, finishing both first on the water and after handicap, giving Geoff and Ghost a good win for their first race of the season.
It was a good evening's racing. It probably rained throughout, but if so I didn't notice. It's certainly warmed up a bit since the weekend.
I'm hoping to get down to Plymouth with Dad at some point this coming weekend, hopefully to sail, though that will be dependent upon both the weather and family situation.
My daughter and the babies are doing okay. There was some distress across the weekend with Charlie, who has developed colitis, which led to the possibility of moving him down to Bristol for surgery, but that's receded now and he appears to be stable again, albeit on an intravenous diet of various blended drugs and antibiotics to nurse him along.
His brother Harry is now doing very well, to the point that he's even taking some of his feed from the bottle now, and there's talk of liberating him from the incubator to a cot within the next couple of days.
For now, of course, they remain at the hospital's neo natal unit, but their mum is able to stay with them.
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