30 May 2023

Last night the heavens opened and it poured! Unfortunately I had forgotten to close the skylight in the main cabin and by around midnight when I finally got around to close it the cabin floor was soaked. I guess I can look at it then as a small reward that in the morning when I got up my COVID symptoms were nearly gone. Hurrah! Maybe we are on the home stretch. We will test ourselves again tomorrow.

Barb and I have one prop that we have been using to wile away the time during our quarantine. It is to listen to Audible books that I have downloaded onto my cell. The last couple of days we have been listening to "Spare", Prince Harry's book about his life as a Royal, as a soldier and as a husband. I wasn't going to get it until I read an article in New Yorker magazine, written by his ghost writer that made me realize that perhaps we would like to read, or rather listen to, it. We weren't wrong. It is an excellent piece and very interesting to hear his side. All along, like everyone else, we have been reading what the media has been feeding us and it is very interesting and eye opening to hear the side of one of the principals. It does show a negative side of Charles and William and their wives, but you have to realize that they are living in the fishbowl too and they are also human, just humans with centuries of a history unimpeded by progress and still doing things a certain way and who have not yet devised a way to deal with the tabloid press and the paparazzi or paps as the Royals call them. I would recommend it as a read.

To clear out the cobwebs we went for a walk this morning out to the head our host's lane and back, about a mile in total. I had been missing my daily walks. It was interesting to see the difference as well as similarities in plants. For instance, magnolias thirty feet high, holly bushes growing wild, poison ivy that has a stem about two inches thick and climbs fifty feet up the side of a pine, different species of maple, pine and fir, etc. All in all, in spite of cooler temperatures and damp air with impending rain, a very pleasant stroll.

Our hosts with the mosts made a trip to Walmart this morning and bought us some more COVID tests and groceries, as well as, Glory Be, a Verison sim card that Barb spent about a hour changing with her Public Mobile one and giving us access to a cellular network. The cell companies down here don't seem to play well with each other with the result that even though you have roaming on your cell from your carrier you may very well find yourself in a location where you have no cell coverage. Here in Mathews Verison seems to have the strangle hold on the air waves down here. It's rather difficult to contact US Customs if you can't call them. This new burner phone allowed us to call US Boarder Protection wherein we stumbled across yet another problem. The fellow that Barb wound up speaking to was very friendly, tried to be helpful, but at the end of the conversation our only option, since we had left the boat in Virginia when we went home and let the cruising permit expire, was to clear in and out of every port that we come to on the way home. Sigh! Oh well. At least I don't hear sirens in the distance.

Chris and Bill have other friends who are coming up the coast in a 75' catamaran which if you think about it, it is bigger than our house! They have been storing their car for them over the winter and will be taking it down to Newport News to a Yacht Club there to drop it off for them. They have kindly offered to reactivate the dinner invitation that had been postponed from last night. So, tonight we will be dining Italian in a very continental fashion after seven. We also got a doggie fix out of the deal. While Chris and Bill did their car delivery and had a dinner out, we had a chance to socialize with their dog Flaco who writes their blog for them, or rather he dictates it to Chris who actually types them in. A pups paws are not designed for keyboards, you know.



Aw Crap!!!

The fires at home have gotten worse!

Our daughter has had to evacuate her home. That’s bad enough but she has had he added responsibility of taking care of our dog and birds as well. They are all safe but it irks that we are herre and can’t do anything to help or ease the burden.


Aw Crap!!!

The fires at home have gotten worse!

Our daughter has had to evacuate her home. That’s bad enough but she has had he added responsibility of taking care of our dog and birds as well. They are all safe but it irks that we are herre and can’t do anything to help or ease the burden.

My pager for the fire department keeps going off with one call after another and it bothers me that I am not therre to do my bit to help.

Damn!