Funny old feeling
06 July 2011 | Hemel Hempstead
Haven't been out sailing for a couple of weeks now, and the funny thing is I haven't missed it (much). In all honesty, I first gave sailing some conscious thought last night. This resulted in an e-mail to the yard to ask them to bring the launch forward one week.
It's strange as over these last few years sailing and the boat have been instrumental in keeping me sane. Work sucked, money was in very short supply, ... I needed my sailing shot. These days work's OK (keeps me interested and some great people to work with) and financially we're better off than we were this time last year.
Other things have kept us busy too – mainly various trips to France to secure our place in the sun. It's fair to say that the search for a property (our first) has now knocked sailing of it's top spot.
Still, that won't last forever. Once that's sorted – hopefully by the end of September – things will revert back to normal. Or what passes for normal round our house.
So, we launch (again) Friday week (July 14th). Then what? It depends. Will I have 3 or 4 weeks off work? Should have known by now, but this is NATO... Do I have to go to Mombasa or not? Time will tell. And it now seems that Brigitte will only have two weeks off work.
So we will have to adjust our ambitions once again. Norway, the Shetlands and the Far Ore now seem to be out of reach.
Another trip to Normandy looks much more likely. We'll see what the weather does.
Looking forward to some decent sailing over the next couple of months before we hand the boat back to the yard one final time this Winter. Come 2012 we'll be 'all done'. Time to enjoy the boat instead of constantly worrying about her. She'll be better than she ever was new and it will have taken us 'only' four years.