so that was July

Another month of summer gone.

Six gigs, a bit of sunshine, some welcome warm weather. A lot of Wednesday evenings spent running the safety boat to cover the racing at the lake and not much time racing myself. 

Some worthwhile work done on Petrella, but no time spent sailing her; at the end of this month I will have had her a year and I feel like we've hardly spent any time together yet.

Random metric: not counting her purchase price, marina fees or insurance, her upkeep and maintenance for the year has cost £5,295.37. Some things didn't necessarily need doing, some other things I could possibly have done cheaper, especially had I more time. But all of it was worthwhile.

The babies are growing like weeds, the house is full of noise and the clutter of the paraphernalia associated with the raising and nurture of them both. 

The dogs are well. Dad is well, although continually complaining about the aches and pains and inconvenience of growing old (though better than the alternative, he tells me) and nagging me to book fewer gigs and spend more time on the boat. 

With 54 gigs in the band's diary for this year, I clearly failed on that score this time around. But it's an ambition for next year. We currently only have 12 gigs booked for 2025 and only 1 for 2026, so a good start so far.

I feel like the year is running away with me and the evenings are already drawing in too fast. Planning the next couple of weeks hopefully away on the boat with Dad and Nik (if all goes to plan we head down on the evening of Sunday 11th and sail west Monday 12th) I was dismayed to realise that dawn is now gone 0600 and getting inevitably later as the year creeps on.

Postscript: I wrote the above at the beginning of August, then, planning to add a little more plus a few photos, have since left it in draft. So, on the grounds that that ship has now sailed, as has August, I've added in a few of July's photos but am now just going to hit "Publish" and be damned. 

So then, that too was August.

In other news, since writing the above, the 2026 gig cancelled, 2024 is now up to 56 bookings, and 2025 currently stands at 26. We did sail for a week last month, absolutely determined to leave more space for sailing next year.