We landed back in Blighty at the end of June to a shocker — glorious sunshine. Our partners in crime, Rusty and Lisa surprised us by escorting us into Portsmouth.
The main reason for our return was as a nurse I need to revalidate every 3 years, and this was due at the end of the year. Within weeks I’d joined a nursing agency, we had bought ourselves a ratmobile to charge around in, and Mum “treated” me to a summer house in her garden.
The Shed.
She announced it was mine to decorate however I liked and to do whatever I wanted with it. Despite repeatedly asking what the purpose of the Summer House was, I was still none the wiser, but duly did as I was told and decorated it inside and out. After a lot of time and effort it transpired Mum just fancied somewhere nice to sit and watch the sunset with her sister! Just to annoy her I named it The Shed, and even bought a name plate for it, to cement my very obvious disgust at being used so blatantly for child labour. She gave precisely zero shits. She had what she wanted.
Work was busy and I had forgotten that twelve-hour shifts without sitting down for a break actually feel like a lifetime, but I actually really enjoyed it. The added bonus of working for an agency being when I went somewhere utterly shite (yes Forest Court and The Clarence Unit, I’m talking about you!) I just didn’t go back. So much more civilised.
Busy times
In between working we squished in loads of dog walks, barbecues, sailing days, and some rather posh dinners — including the our local sailing club, Hornet and HMS Victory.
A throwaway comment at the club landed Lee a rather civilised job as a military sailing instructor, so he then passed the time flying about to different places sailing boats and trying to pretend to me it was hard work whilst I was wiping butts, dressing leg ulcers and spending 7 hours a day doing drug rounds.
Franco the modelo
Franco scored himself a “professional” photo shoot through Facebook. You know the ones, “Tell us your old dog’s story and win a free photoshoot!”. We spent a couple of hours there, it was brilliant fun, they sat us in the screening area with a big multimedia screen and all the “musak” and posh coffee, and then the hard sell began. Unfortunately I’d screenshotted the original ad on Facebook. We walked away with a fabulous photo for the price of the frame. Their faces were a picture. Almost as good as Franco’s.
Dogtober
In October Mum and I went to Saltdean Lido’s “Dogtober” event — hundreds of dogs charging around the famous art deco Lido in Saltdean, Brighton before the pool closes for winter. Mum used to go there all the time when she was little, so I booked it up months in advance as a surprise and off we went. Hoover had a complete refusal so just got lobbed in, Franco was a dick and kept stealing everyone else’s dog toys and we all nearly died from hypothermia. Being Brighton everyone had a cockapoo or some variant, and dry robes. Its like a bloody cult. Mum and I rocked up in flimsy Decathlon ones and nearly froze to death.
Wet and windy winter.
Somehow, between shifts, I also became Mum’s personal legal team. After weeks of wrangling with British Gas, who had seen fit to charge Mum absurd amounts of money that increased every month despite her usage decreasing, it became a personal mission. After sending multiple snotograms, getting Citizens Advice involved, and finally the Ombudsman, she pocketed a hefty rebate and we got treated to a nice dinner. And she’s now with Octopus and addicted to her energy meter in the kitchen. It’s like the game “beat the sat nav”, but energy wise. Eventually Jake, my gas engineer nephew had to stage an intervention and tell her it wasn’t a competition to see who could live in the coldest house over Winter.
Boat projects ticked along — saloon windows repaired, teak panels replaced and Lee emptied, shouted at and repacked lockers. Winter was windy, wet and grim. We tried living with Mum but decided I wasn’t prepared to spend 5 – 10 years incarcerated for murder and it wouldn’t be fair on Mum for her to spend her final years in prison for murdering us in our sleep, so we moved back onboard and spanked the arse out of the heaters, industrial tog duvets and the marina tumble dryer to keep things dry and warm. Once Lee got over the pain of turning on heaters it was actually quite cosy!
Christmas in the UK!
I had been so excited about spending Christmas in the UK after many years away, but it now appears to start in bloody September!!! Seriously! By the time December rolls around everyone has had their decorations up for 3 months, have got themselves in 5 years worth of debt over one day and have been eating tubs of Quality Street for breakfast for weeks. Still, it was fun to go shopping, cook dinner and watch TV but it did make me realise how everything now is about buying tat all year round. Something you don’t really see abroad.
New Year we joined Rob and Nerys (from Ghostrider) at their beautiful home in Wales for a week. We met up again with the lovely Laura and had another Christmas day and had yet more freezing cold walks. Meanwhile February took us up North to Dad Sam for bingo and more family time, which was brilliant fun. Apparently we also have bingo South of the Hindhead Tunnel. This I did not know.
Mum’s Big Birthday Bash.
I organised a big Afternoon Tea garden party for Mum’s 85th, as due to Covid she wasn’t able to celebrate her 80th. So it was a very delayed big birthday party. Hardly any tea was drunk but everyone got absolutely rat-arsed, Mum got loads of presents and, ahem, I made another cracking Croquembouche. So all in all a huge success.
Diablito gets a heart transplant.
Just as we thought the boat was ready for the season — antifouling, hull polishing, endless packing — the engine died. We took her out to make the stupidly short hop across to Bembridge when an alarm sounded. We have a ritual of making bacon sandwiches when we leave on a trip, so I was cooking the bacon and the alarm went off. This always happens and when it does, it normally means the bacon is the right level of crispiness. Lee informed me the bacon was done. I told him it wasn’t the galley alarm screaming at me. Within a minute he had his head in the engine bay and all hell broke lose. We had lost 5 litres of oil in minutes. Never good. We quickly lassoed ourselves onto the nearest buoy and had a think. After careful consideration and a little wait for the lock to be on free flow, we limped our way very slowly back into Port Solent with their rib on standby. We parked up and I quickly got off the boat so Lee could have his epic meltdown in private.
After lots of investigations and tests it was official. The engine was royally screwed with low compression. It might have carried on working for a few more days, weeks, months or even years but never at full power and could catastrophically fail at any point with no warning. We bit the bullet and ordered a new engine and Black Gang Marine in Port Solent were booked to install it.
Cue a 2 month delay, a brand-new engine and eye-watering bills. And nothing on the insurance.
Spain, sun and sangria.
With us in a state of shock, my cousin Tracey and her rather lovely husband Saint Simon came to the rescue and invited us to an open ended stay at their beautiful villa in Spain. After absolutely no persuasion at all and whilst she was still issuing the invite we loaded up the car and drove South to Granada in Spain with Franco. I spent 6 weeks of utter bliss with my cousin. Lee flew off to do some sailing jobs and Saint Simon flew to the UK to do some work. Meanwhile Franco slept in the sun and played in the pool whilst Tracey and I perfected cocktails and got sloshed. Absolute heaven. Happy doesn’t even come close.
Eventually we got word the engine was sorted and the boat was back in the water, so we drove back up to the UK and checked in the the Eurotunnel. Only to be told Franco needed worming. For the love of God!! This bloody dog has travelled all around the world and I forget to worm him for his return to the UK!!!!! They calmly handed us a piece of paper with a vets address on it and told us he was expecting us. Then another piece of paper with dog friendly hotels on it and another one with our new booking (at no extra cost!) for 24 hours time. Lee wisely didn’t say a word as we got Franco wormed and checked in to the hotel. We spent the next day killing time by wine shopping and by early evening we were back on the boat. The following day the new engine was tested, signed off, and over the next couple of days Lee reconnected the electrics and generator. We moved everything out from Mum’s garage where we had hidden it away over winter and packed it all back on Diablito. We are finally good to go!!!
Sodding Storms!
And now??? Now we are now sat in Port Solent haemorrhaging marina fees, staring at a teeny, tiny weather windows between endless storms. Grrrrrr. Bloody love sailing.