Nikki and I both had last week booked off, the original plan being to head down to the boat with Dad and escape westwards into Cornwall. An appointment with her surgeon scheduled for last Monday curtailed the originally intended early escape, so in the end we didn't get to the boat until mid-afternoon Tuesday.
I made the best of it though, with a gig early Saturday evening, racing with Amanda around the cans at South Cerney Sunday morning and then taking Nikki out to lunch after her appointment with the surgeon on Monday.
So, finally to Plymouth, Tuesday afternoon. Petrella's bimini, an integral part of her cockpit tent, had blown some stitching on some of its seams and zips, so first job was to take the tent down and deliver it to Octagon Marine for repairs. I took the opportunity to ask them to replace the Perspex windows on the back and sides of the tent at the same time, as the original Perspex was so salt and UV scarred by age as to be even barely opaque any more.
I've also ordered some covers for the wheel and instruments, winches and chart-plotter. My thinking is two-fold. At the moment, we keep the cockpit tent up permanently when we're not aboard so as to protect the winches and instruments, but that means it takes the brunt of the elements. If it's not up all the time, then the tent, its zips and the clarity of the windows should last a lot longer.
And it takes about an hour to set the tent up, and about the same to take it down. Perhaps I'm exaggerating a little, but it's a significant effort. So a significant deterrent to taking the boat out for just a few of hours of day-sailing. Perhaps if I reduce the time it takes to prepare and pack away respectively, I'll get more use out of the boat, as getting away for any extended period of time, whether a couple of days or a couple of weeks, has over the last couple of years proven itself to be very difficult.
On which note, when we sat down to supper in the Marina restaurant last Tuesday evening we had a close re-evaluation of our plans for the week. The pain and discomfort in Nikki's hip has escalated dramatically over the last few months. With my help and a stepladder, she could just about board Petrella from the pontoon in the marina, but when I pressed her, she finally admitted she was a little anxious about sailing. So we took the decision to scrap our sailing plans and stay in Plymouth for the week.
It wasn't a terrible hardship.
We ate out in the Barbican Wednesday evening, enjoyed an extended fireworks display over the Sound later that night and then another Thursday evening, as it was the annual Plymouth Fireworks Competition.
Friday morning, the government set out a "Critical Warning" to anybody with a mobile phone to warn about the risk of wildfires and discourage us from setting of fireworks or lighting BBQ's or other such silly, potentially incendiary activities. Not sure of the detail, as couldn't really read the small print without my glasses. But the high-pitched, squealing alarm was amplified out of every phone in the packed marina, so gave more than a few of us a bit of a jump.
Annoyingly, I had a bit of a reaction to a prawn salad I had for lunch on Wednesday, which suggests I might've developed a seafood allergy of some kind. I've eaten a lot of prawns in my time, so I guess this could be their revenge. Over the counter antihistamines sorted it out within twenty-four hours, so it had little impact other than to perhaps influence how often we ate out and what I ate over the rest of the week.
Other than that, we spent most days aboard lazing on cushions in Petrella's cockpit beneath the shade of the now re-stitched binini, relaxing and enjoying the warmth of a glorious summer. There's a hesitancy in penning that particular description of the weather; the temperature stretched up into the mid 30's at times and I realise the scary potential significance of the multiple heatwaves we've had this year. I also see the parched, yellowed tinderbox landscape the country has become. But I am a creature of the heat, so can't help but selfishly revel in it whilst I can.
It was a lovely five days of no plans, no commitments, no expectations, stresses or pressures to worry us. Most of my time was spent reading, with the occasional break to play a bit of guitar. Nikki and I distracted ourselves with a trip to a butterfly sanctuary on Saturday afternoon, the three of us ate again in the Marina restaurant Saturday evening - as I was unable to enjoy any seafood the three of us elected to instead enjoy their fillet steak - and then we packed up the boat Sunday morning and came home via Yate, where stopped to visit our youngest grandchild Freddie and his mum and dad.
He's ten months old now, and thriving. How time flies.
Blood tests tomorrow to try and get to the bottom of whatever that allergic reaction was that I had.
Racing again at South Cerney Wednesday evening, then gigs Saturday and Sunday. Not sure what my plans are for the week after, but the weekend after next I'm hoping to get back down to the boat with Dad, and this time perhaps manage to cast off and actually head off somewhere for a day or two.
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