enabler danger

Just got in from a chilly walk around the park with Lottie. She's a pretty dog, I think she has all the colours of autumn in her coat.

Winter is definitely nipping at our heels. We had our first snow last week, which lightly settled for the day with the temperatures around zero C, before melting again as the weather warmed back up over the weekend by a dozen degrees or so and a storm blew through. 

I spent a very wet weekend on the boat with Lottie and Dad. Any of the original ambitions we had of sailing to Fowey for the weekend was made a mockery of by the weather, and we stayed secure in the marina whilst the wet south-westerly blew through over the two days with gusts of up to 50 knots or so.

The boat was very comfortable in the weather, despite the perpetually wet dog aboard with us. The drive down Saturday morning and the drive back Sunday afternoon were less comfortable in the thick rain, but manageable.

The temperatures have fallen back down to around freezing again today. I haven't bothered to look at what they might do for the weekend, as I can't go sailing anyway. I have a gig in Cheltenham Saturday night, and it's my daughter's birthday, so we're taking the family out to lunch on Sunday. It'll be nice to see the grandchildren again, I've quite missed them.

I've had my eye on a new guitar for some weeks or more now. It's more than I should spend and more than I need to spend, given that I have a perfectly lovely guitar that I gig with already, and a very nice collection of other guitars, electric and acoustic.

The algorithms that drive the internet have haunted and taunted me with frequent images over the last month or so. I can't even guess how they work out our interests so keenly, then saturate us with advertising at every turn.

I saw a joke the other day on a site that these afore mentioned algorithms frequently point in my direction. I enjoy the humour of the site, so they're not wrong.

I can confidently inform you from personal experience that it's not twenty eight or twenty nine, either.

The trouble is, it's not just the Internet advertising algorithms that seek to enable me. I mentioned this guitar to Nikki, thinking she'd very quickly put me straight. But I should've known better. I think she gets a rush out of spending money, and I don't think it matters what on.

I mentioned it to the guitarist in my band, Matt, thinking he'd set me right. He's absolutely the best guitarist I know or know of, but he owns two electric guitars. Both exactly the same, except one is silk black, and the other finished with a natural wood appearance. Ironic, as both are actually made out of carbon fibre. He got the first when he was about nineteen, a couple of years after he joined the band, and the second he bought a couple of years later.

So he's had these two guitars quite a while now, as neither of us are nineteen any longer. But no, rather than talking me down, he waxed lyrical about how he'd gone up to the shop in Birmingham with his wife the other weekend to find her a bass, and had seen this guitar himself and had immediately thought of me.

Finally, I mentioned it on a call to my friend and business partner, Will, about an hour ago. By this point, I wasn't so much looking for somebody to talk me down of the ledge, but rather affirm my wayward inclinations. Will's a fellow guitarist, much more technically proficient than me in many ways, though in his case it's for his own pleasure, he's far too committed to his work and family to have time for a band and doesn't perform.

But he does have a fine collection of guitars of his own. In his words, "I've never regretted buying another guitar"; and in truth, neither have I.

It's amazing how few key-presses it takes to commit to spending such a large amount of money on the Internet. Three, in total, I think it took. And the guitar should be with me on Monday. A gorgeous, American built PRS, serial number #0371825.

Far more guitar than I really need or could ever rationally justify. Some men spend their mid-life crisis on a sportscar or motorbike. I refuse to count the boat as such, so instead, this can be mine. Anyway, I'm planning fewer gigs and more sailing next year, but even with that in mind, within a year she should've paid for herself.

the question is

 Will the dog fit?

autumnal (and a rubber dinghy)

I'm not fond of the year growing older, and for the first time in quite some years, feel like we haven't had enough of  a summer to justify the on-rush of winter. But I couldn't help feeling, as I walked Lottie around our local park yesterday evening, that autumn can be ever so pretty.

In other news, I took a trip back to Portishead with Dad the day before yesterday, to pick up a new tender from the chandlery there. A Honwave T25-AE; basically, a 2.5 meter rubber dinghy with an aluminium insert floor.

The idea is to trade the inconvenience of the extra weight involved for the additional stability it should give, and so make Petrella a little more accessible at anchor or on a mooring buoy for the less mobile members of her crew. I'm specifically thinking of Dad, Nikki and, potentially, Lottie. The dinghy's bigger tube diameter and inflatable keel should also make the ride dryer and more comfortable for them.

The chandlery in Portishead was able to source the dinghy for £100 less than I could find it for sale anywhere online, which was a nice change. Always prefer to support a local business if I can.

I've also bought an electric pump, an AIR NRG 6000; this admittedly from an online chandlery. It's not that I mind pumping up the tender manually, but it's a job Dad always insists on doing. Which always draws dirty looks from any boats surrounding: "why is that fit young man sitting there with a beer watching whilst that poor old man does all the heavy work?"

Which, I admit, simply amuses me. Both the idea that being a "fit young man" is only relative to the company I keep when sailing Petrella, and the idea that I have any say in the matter as to who gets to pump the tender up.

In fairness, the electric pump was, I think, his quiet suggestion. Because, as he puts it, pumping up the tender is such a nuisance. Which, of course, it wouldn't be, if only he'd let me do it.

All four of the above photos were taken within the space of about a minute with, of course, the phone in my pocket, on yesterday evening's walk, facing three different directions, the sunset to the left of Lottie, the moonrise over Robinswood Hill to the right. 

I think dusk is my favourite time of day. I just resent the fact that it arrives so early at this time of year.

a quiet autumn

Unless you count the band. Then it's been anything but. Six gigs in October, quieter than the eight gigs we had in September, but it still left very little time for anything else outside of work.

Dad and I did manage to get out of harbour for a day. Actually, thinking about it, that wasn't October, but rather the last weekend of September. A gig free weekend, we'd hoped to sail over to Fowey. But the forecast for the Sunday was grim; far to rough for us to consider sailing back in, which meant that any sailing was going to be limited to the Saturday only, as I needed to be back in the office for the Monday.

So we stayed on the boat for the weekend and took a couple of friends, Dan and Justin, out sight-seeing on the Saturday. In deep contrast to the Sunday forecast, it was a flat calm, so we put the main up just to remind ourselves we were really a sailboat, but otherwise motored the eight miles or so out to the Eddystone light, which proved to be quite a popular spot in the calm weather.

Happily, the wind filled in a little towards the end of the day. Dad muttered something about having had enough and supper calling, but with our two guests aboard he lost the popular vote, so we silenced the engine and had a very enjoyable couple of hours sailing back and forth across the Sound, just for the hell of it, before we returned to the marina.

That was the last time I managed to get Petrella out of her berth. We've been down a couple of times since to check on her, but haven't had time to actually sail.

In part because Dad's damaged himself. Some time around the beginning of October, probably gardening. He has a stubborn talent for disregarding the physical limits of his body, and we think he managed to pull something. Subsequently, he's been in a lot of pain and next to immobilised the last few weeks. He's improved a little, but he's still walking only with the aid of a stick, stooped over and in significant discomfort.

That aside, we're still hoping to take Petrella out west to Fowey and back again on my next weekend off, which is in a couple of weeks time. It will, of course, be very dependent upon the weather. Which is flat calm again at the moment, but always very changeable at this time of year.

In other news, my daughter and the grandchildren move out this week. Probably tomorrow. For reasons I completely understand. But, for reasons it would be indiscrete and inappropriate for me to fully explore here, Nik and I are deeply unhappy and more than a little distressed by the situation. In part, because of the timing, it's too quick and too soon. But mostly because of distance. 

The twins are just a little over six months old now, and thriving. After all the stress and trauma of their early weeks, they've been an absolute joy to have in the house, to watch how they've developed and grown.

Arguing that it's the only place they can afford to rent, Tash and her new boyfriend are moving with our grandchildren to a place called Tonypandy. A Welsh town, a little outside of Swansea. I'm sure it's lovely, but the fact remains that it's eighty miles away. A two hour drive away from her nearest friends and family.

Whatever twist I put on it, whatever reassurances Tash or her boyfriend try to give, I find that distance, and everything it means that Nik and I will miss out on in the coming months and potentially years of our grandchildren's lives, quite heart breaking.