This weather is marvelous. I don't know why I bothered to take Nelleke out of the water! February and there is no snow and the temperature is above freezing!

We are getting back to the sweaty stuff in the home renovations. BArb has hauled everything out of the kitchen cupboards and I am coming home tonight to yank them off the walls. Hopefully, if I can do them in one piece, we will be handing them over to our friends Ian and Robin for their second house and then we can start the real work. Our intent will be to put down a new floor which we have already bought, using a nail gun, which the local hardware store will lend us, and then get a fellow who has come recommended to install the new cabinets which have arrived. The counters do not have tops which I will make. I have already called a sawmill to mill us some 36" x 2" planks of pine which I will finish and cut to fit and then install atop the cupboards. Once they are in place we can put in our new sink and finally install the dishwasher. Hurrah! Mikey's happy dance is underway. If we can get this done before herself has her surgery it will make things much easier for her when she gets back home.

I am already planning cruises on my holidays. Isn't that pathetic? Oh well. At least when we head back south on a more or less permanent basis we will have a replenished cruising kitty, the various nearly done things aboard that have been nearly done for the three years that we were away will finally be finished, and we will no longer be paying someone to store our stuff.