Last night was only the second one since we got here that the butter stayed soft on the counter top and I didn’t feel like snuggling down deeper and deeper into my sleeping bag. We paid for it with a thunder and lightning storm accompanied with a deluge of rain at about 03h00 though. We found out today that this county is under a tornado warning. How delightful! Here we are in a boat right next to buildings made up predominantly of corrugated sheet metal. Now, click your heels together three times and repeat after me, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” At two o’clock in the afternoon things seemed to have settled down and we haven’t been blown off to Kansas or set upon by flying monkeys or anything so perhaps we have dodged that one. I am hoping that our friends Alain and Judy who elected to remain in Hampton Roads until the weather system passed are OK. As I recall that spot they would have been at anchor on the other side of a fairly long fetch with a lea shore. AT the least they would have had a bumpy day of it.

We found out today that the parts required to finish the engine install are not currently or at least easily available, so their expected arrival this morning didn’t happen. The staff is trying to find an alternate source but it would seem that no one has them. I am keeping my fingers crossed. What this does do is give us an opportunity to get to work on some other of our own projects so it isn’t as if we are sitting around doing nothing. My only concern is being able to get underway in time to clear out before our permit expires again and to be able to meet our friend Mike in Gloucester in the middle of May.

I am about to go off on another of my rants so if anyone out there wants to avoid it just skip ahead a couple of paragraphs.

We have been having some problems getting Periwinkle to eat properly. Oh, he isn’t starving or anything but he could be tucking in a little better. We buy all the best stuff – weight control, tartar control, energy foods recommended by the vets but most of the time all he does is try to scrape the floor over it. After holding it under my nose I can’t say that I blame him. It smells like puke on a plate! I’d be trying to bury it too. All of the so called experts tell us that we should stick with one type of food because our little doggie friends digestive systems can’t handle variety. Great - a non-stop diet of puke on a plate. Yummm! We have tried a variety of manufacturers’ products to no effect. They all have two things in common: none of them look like they do on TV and they all smell like puke on a plate. They tell us that our pets aren’t like us. They won’t know what they’re missing. Crap! They live in our houses and can smell what we are preparing for ourselves, and after we settle in to a yummy meal with yummy smells, what do we serve them? Puke on a plate. Alpo, Dr Ballard’s, Purina and all the others should be taken into dark rooms and force fed their own concoctions. It might make them more creative in what they produce for us to feed our pets. I feel much better now. I just wish there was something other than our own food that I could feed the wee tyke. I know that there are certain minerals and vitamins that they need more and less of than we do so simply adding a third plate to the table wouldn’t work.

End of rant. You can breathe freely again now.

I am in my last week down here before I start back with the car. Sure hope things get moving with the engine.