After the excitement of Christmas and New Year, January always feels like a bit of a come down. Unless you live in a marina.

We have neighbours both sides. One side Canarian. The other, the Fat Fin. And both sides like to party hard. After yet another sleepless night due to music, shouting but most annoyingly, constant loud thumping until 0700 hrs. I asked them what it was. But you know. With a side of stink eye. Just so they knew I was unimpressed.

Eventually they realised it was their dancing. Flamenco dancing to be precise. We all laughed about it (I chose not to choose violence) and we proceeded to have a BBQ together. That night when I was in bed, Lee was still up with them having a beer. And they started to dance.

Another couple of Canarian guys our age explained, calmly but with unmistakable authority, that the racket they were making was being amplified through hulls and water alike, transforming their enthusiastic dancing into the sound of stampeding rhinos directly beneath our cabin. This was not, it transpired, the reaction they’d anticipated. The music stopped with gratifying speed. And all without me having to lose my shit. Which, frankly, felt like a personal triumph.

The other side of us is the Fat Fin. Who’s girlfriend decided to visit. Thus ensued absurdly loud screaming that went on for over half an hour with objects being thrown. Eventually it reached the point of ridiculousness and I felt I had to ask if everything was OK. Now I don’t know Finnish. I know. My bad, but even I knew the Fat Fin had been a naughty boy and had just been caught out.

So the upset girlfriend promptly left and after a few days another blonde turns up. And then both boats either side of us decide to share the love and party together. And then it really starts to gets really messy.

We wake up at 0100hrs to screaming and shouting outside our boat. Angry Spanish spoken at speed is quite difficult to understand but with Lee and I both peeking out from the hatch like a couple of nosy curtain twitchers we manage to ascertain the Fat Fin had partied a little too hard with the Canarians and had ended up boarding a boat with 2 French girls on it demanding money he said they owed him.

They called the Guardia Civil who called the Marineros. The Fat Fin threw the Marinero’s phone in the water and then punched the Marinero and threw him in the water after his phone. The police arrive. The Fat Fin vanishes and life goes on.

Early the next morning the Canarians also make a sharp exit and peace resumes once more.

The yoof of today! The worst we seemed to do was drink Maddog 20/20 in the rec with our mates and share a packet of 10 B&H that we bought with a box of matches and packet of polo’s for about 60p!

Thankfully, the Fat Fin’s boat will soon be moving on and our pontoon will revert to the civilised little village it normally is. The partying will reduce to once a week, which we can endure, and I shall once again sit in the cockpit, judging all. Because I can. And because I do so with the deep comfort of knowing that our own misdemeanours are now nothing but gloriously fading memories, leaving not a single scrap of evidence behind.