not all Sunday mornings are created equal

Sunday morning 0755hrs, somewhere off the Devon coast out of Salcombe, on our way back to Plymouth. A gorgeous weekend. Not a huge fan of Salcombe town, but the harbour is lovely.

Hard to think of a better way to weather a heatwave. Winds are back in the east again; we had about 10 knots going out and 15 coming back, but both days saw gusts into the mid 20's. The usual stress taking her off and putting her back into her berth at QAB, complicated by a few silly mistakes that were avoidable but I failed to avoid.

We live and learn, and no damage was done, of which I'm quite proud. With a live performance, it's not the mistakes that count but how you cover or, if necessary, recover. I think the same is true here, to a limited degree at least.

So no damage, not even to my dignity such as it is, because there was nobody else watching, and I am my most forgiving audience.

Actually, I'm not. But in this instance I'll cut myself some slack, as long as said silly mistakes are not repeated again.

of competing demands

I might've mentioned this before. The band played 59 gigs last year. That level of activity, along with the competing demands of a day job and family, gets somewhat in the way of sailing. So this year, to try to be sure I made more time for my boat, I resolved to book less.

As the diary currently stands, we currently have 58 bookings for this year. The failure is not lost on me. We potentially have a few Fridays left in November and December, but otherwise, this year's diary is now full.

On the other hand, I am planning to sail again this weekend, weather permitting, and so far it looks promising. So the spirit of the plan is kind of working out, in that I've managed to build more gaps into the diary. Of course, I was supposed to be away sailing all this week, having previously booked the week off work. But a project came up at work that was supposed to start on Monday, so the week's leave got cancelled. Or, more precisely, postponed.

As did said project, first thing Monday. So I could've gone sailing after all.

Of course, the upshot of this year's diary being full for the band, is that people are now scrambling to book us for next year. 

I've been even more brutal with reserving time for the boat, the idea being two weekends for the band, one weekend scrubbed out for sailing, religiously, right through the year, and a week for sailing in June and another at the end of July respectively. 

Added to that is a week at the beginning of October to take Nikki away somewhere warm, and a week at the beginning of January to take her somewhere exotic, warm or otherwise; that being the week of our 30th wedding anniversary.

The band diary for 2026 is currently sitting pretty at 23 bookings, with all the available Saturdays for January, March, June, July, August, September and October now essentially spoken for.

I think this weekend Dad and I might head back to Fowey. 

those dog days of summer