Panic!

The fridge.

Panic!

And breath....

I had a lovely holiday, thank you. You may or may not have noticed my absence, but if you did then I am back from Suffolk (our beautiful home in beautiful Suffolk) and back on the boat in Falmouth, Cornwall. But not for long.

Due to the weather we are leaving for Barcelona a little earlier than expected. So I have had 4 days to get back into the swing of living on a boat, provisioning for 10 days at sea and cooking bad-weather meals for the freezer. The very same freezer that has just decided for no apparent reason to no longer freeze and is sitting at a balmy 3 degrees.

Hence the panic. Why oh why of all days would it do that to me? And I do indeed take it personally! I'm not rude to it, I never kick it or fill it with the usual bottom dwelling layer of frozen peas. I defrost it when I can and how does it repay me!

We've had one guy here already who couldn't fix it, our engineer is still on holiday and I have cooked 6 meals that need freezing.

Breath girl, breath.

Okay, it's fine really. We'll just eat our way systematically through the bad weather food until the engineer gets back and (hopefully) fixes it. Then if we could all together now pray especially hard for flat calm seas, absolutely no bad weather what-so-ever and most of all for fish, that would be great, I thank you once again.

So I have shopped for all the usual delivery friendly fruit and veg. Green bananas, white and red cabbage for when the lettuce runs out in two days. Did you know that delicate lettuce leaves like rocket gets seasick? It really does. A day at sea and it has turned into a smelly green sludge in a bag. Yuk. So I buy a few hardy icebergs to keep us in salad and then we resort to coleslaws and cucumbers and tomatoes and celeriac remoulades...

It'll be fine. it'll all be fine. Nobody will be going hungry. I can't fit anymore food in the cupboards and bilges. The fridge is fit to burst and the sun is shining.

And if I buy one last batch of Cornish pasties tomorrow morning before we leave, they'll love me forever.

Fingers crossed. So wish us luck and ! I'll let you know how it goes at our very next stop which will probably be Brest, beautiful Brest and their delicious crepes.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Drag two trolleys round a supermarket and fill up with groceries.

Take everything out of the trolleys and load onto a conveyor belt. Check-out person beeps it through the till which you then catch on the other side and load into bags in some semblance of order.

Return groceries to trolley with eggs sitting on top.

Load huge bags of groceries into van, so they don't fall and crush all the eggs.

Unload the van, piling all bags into trolleys warning crew not to crush the eggs.

Unload the groceries from the trolleys to the deck..

Get the groceries down the forward hatch into the crew mess.

Take 3 hours to unload the groceries and put away in various fridges, broken freezers, cupboards and bilges, wiping out all the broken egg and shell from that bag.

Repeat entire process in next port because all the buggers have eaten everything

Pendennis Regatta in Falmouth, Our Favourite.



I am writing this whilst sitting on a train heading North East for Suffolk from Falmouth in Cornwall. It's an exciting journey of five hours to London then all change, a predictably stressful tube ride to Liverpool Street then on the final train to take us home for a little holiday. Eight hours in total it takes to get to Suffolk from Falmouth; eight hours. You can get to America in eight hours, all be it on a plane.

I say a stressful tube journey because I may have picked up a few bits and bobs for our new house on our travels. George has been remarkably calm since he discovered, after our early start this morning that he will be carrying a full length mirror and woven hearth rug along with his own luggage. And will no doubt be required to assist me and my burden of ceramic jug, non-stick wok, collapsible shelf thingy and a couple of picture frames along with my own ruck sack. It all seemed like such a good idea at the time.

However a five hour train ride is a great excuse to sit and do nothing after a very busy Pendennis regatta. As predicted, the regatta brought challenging weather and sailing conditions, fantastic social events and friends from afar. The first day of the regatta was the wettest race I have ever sailed in and with strong, gusty winds meaning many sail changes and incredibly heavy loads, I was basically done in right from the start. The weight of three strand lines and sails triples when they're full of water and lets be honest - I'm getting too old for all of that.

My staysail team were awesome, heaving on sheets and jiggers on the leeward side, often waist deep in strong flowing water as the boat powered up and until I was happy with the staysail's trim. Our harnesses came in pretty handy, keeping us on the boat with its lack of safety rails. But what an adrenaline rush it is. I can't help but love it.

I also cant help but love eating much fresh local lobster and crab whilst here in Cornwall. It's such a treat and a great way to explore the local fisheries and seasonal produce. And if you'd like a simple recipe for a very tasty crab and chili linguine dish then just watch this space... I'll be back.

So I won't selfishly bore you to death just because I have five hours on this train to kill but I will leave you with a few piccys. Don't they tell a thousand stories?

Thanks for reading. Note I didn't talk about the weather too much. But lets hope Sunny Suffolk is just that...


Cheers!

Tidying the decks and wooling sails after a long day racing

                     



Bowsprits in the fog of Falmouth

That there is blue sky. I dont have photoshop I promise. It was real....



Finally getting a sandwich on the rail after the last long race



The forepeak full of wet sails, my bunk in the background. Nice.

And some of beautiful Cornwall;