We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, however and wherever you spent it, and we wish you all a very healthy and happy 2008.

We returned to the UK in December and did a whistle-stop tour seeing family and friends. Sorry if we did not see you on this trip but it was impossible to see and do everything. We had a great time and would like to thank everyone who put us up during our stay. We slept in 9 different beds over a 3 week period!

We got back to La Ciotat last week and are now happily back onboard Deep Blue planning jobs that we want to do whilst we are here for a few months including the annual maintenance of re-antifouling the underneath.

It has been a busy week finding out new things here in La Ciotat. There is a small cinema that shows films in English as well as French so last night we went to see a Ken Loach film called It's A Free World. Whilst is was a novelty to watch an English film, it was a bit of a depressing subject - the exploitation of immigrants in the UK, and when we came out we kept a low profile in case the locals thought that all English people were the same. This morning, we awoke to find a fantastic market had appeared all around the port. There were all kinds of stalls including those selling cheese and cooked meats, fruit & vegetables, CD's and DVD's, jewellery and clothes. We strolled around in the sunshine and bought some crockery and cheese. By 1pm it was all over, everyone was then in the restaurants for lunch and the local council workers were cleaning up.

The weather has been variable this week. We've had a few days of grey skies and rain but, on the whole, it has been very mild with big blue skies. Long may it continue.

NEW PHONE NUMBER

We have a new telephone number that you can contact us on wherever we are. It is a UK (Isle of Man) mobile number. 07924 428235 from a UK landline and +44 7924 428235 from a mobile