Photo: Robin, sometimes spotted in the greenwoods of Panama...

They tell me in the Sherwood Forester pub here in my home town of Sherwood, that it's where Robin Hood would meet Maid Marion for their regular early-doors tipple, that they'd whisper secrets into each others' ears with his sneaky hand on her lap while they counted his days takings from out on the trail. His was a room-temperature English beer, hers a rough-hewn flagon of elderflower mead. On the weekends they'd be joined by Will Scarlet and Friar Tuck - and sometimes by a few more of their men who'd sing rousing rebel songs before spending a good deal of time making merry. Though not the big man Little John - they tell me for some reason Little John was himself life-long banned. It's a bit of a rum joint is the Sherwood Forester, the sheriff tried to close it shut but was caught late one night with his trousers down around his knees.

Fifteen hundred years later, little here in Sherwood has changed. This urban hamlet is still a hotbed of revolutionary outlaws though property prices are rising fast. There are now boutique coffee shops, two of the four pubs serve food and a number of 'wine bars' cater for the influx of thirtyish or something social workers, aspiring teachers and lower-ranking lawyers who are not yet partners in their respective law firms. Sherwood's standing has for a while threatened to move swiftly upwards in a social curve - we ourselves became monied sailors, our good friends across the road took off on their canal barge. Then, along came this bastard coronavirus which has changed everything.

We've been back in Sherwood for nearly twelve months now, that's a year in Robin Hood language. We've been here before of course, during the warm summers when England is at its glorious best, when there's English cricket, music festivals and when blue-eyed English girls wear their flaxen hair in braided pigtails. But the wintertimes in England are dire, the grey depression lows roll in one after another off the Atlantic, when the endless days of drizzly rain eventually begin to wear us intrepid English down. It's why we dive into Sherwood's welcoming sawdust-floored pubs with their smokey burning coal fires, Mowbray pork pies and old-fashioned non-chilled English beer... and why we always make sure Sänna is moored ready somewhere nice and warm. Not this time though, Sänna is tied up all alone in Panama, in Vista Mar where many other intrepid sailors have abandoned their ocean sailboats too.

This last year has been tough - and not just for us ourselves. All our children - my three daughters, their partners, my grandchildren and Marie's son have all contracted this unseen virus called covid, my brother and his wife too. All in all they've been ok - except my youngest daughter who's the fittest and leanest of us all. She suffered, she suffered bad from this vicious Chinese bat virus - which makes me feel good that we were here in Sherwood, that we were not stranded somewhere far off unable to return.

Soon everything will change, these amazing vaccines will send this oxygen-sucking coronavirus back into the damp rainforest and dark caves of China from where it came. Soon, we can laugh loudly in its face when we count our dead - though we know the world has now forever changed. Those ridiculous conspiracy theories spouted by those who could not cope will still plague us but me and Marie will reset, reassured by our Astra-Zeneca vaccine. Robin and Marion both opted for the Pfizer, which they stole from some rich who mistakenly believed they'd in their own way jumped the queue. The merry men, they're fine too, they'd caught the covid anyway and tell everyone they rob they're now immune. Sadly, the two big men, the Friar Tuck and Little John, they did not make it. High at risk from their pre-existing English disease, the care home they chose to see out their days holding hands was not as safe as they both hoped. They died alone, with Robin banging hard upon the window in tearful vain.

The sheriff and his cohort the king - not the lionhearted one but his scheming brother - they're going well too. They were first in the vaccine line because of their great age... both now claiming their loss of office was down to that old chestnut - out-and-out election fraud. They're still trying hard to stop the so-called steal. So all's reasonably well here in rain-sodden Sherwood, the Sherwood Forester has for a longtime been closed with the infamous back-house toilets still chained, though the Snobby Butcher a few doors down remains open - if you're in the know with a nod and a wink, there's a good cut of king's venison saved somewhere under the counter.

Please spare a thought for rusting and rotting Sänna - almost one year alone in covid-ridden Panama.
________________________________________________________________________________
Please visit our SV Sänna website for more details of our circumnavigation voyage from the UK. Also at www.facebook.com/SV.Sanna. Like our Facebook page if you'd like to receive more news about our sail adventure. You can contact us here.

Read more about the mishaps and mayhem of Nellie, The Ship's Cat