Thursday

We have been very touched by all the messages of support and encouragement we've received since posting the last entry. Thank you all so much. It seems like a natural ending to this blog, hosted on a site that is aimed at the sailing community. As we're now becoming dirt dwellers it doesn't seem right to carry on recording our adventures on sailblogs, tempting as it is (it is SO much easier to use!)

If you are interested in our on-going adventures you will find them at: lamputtsonland.wordpress.com 

This is very much a work in progress so hopefully it'll start to look a bit more professional in time. 

Thanks again to everyone.
Neil and Cathy X

Friday

We’ve said our goodbyes. Seren Môr is truly no longer ours. For a brief couple of nights we were aboard her again, so familiar, so much a part of us. But as we awoke this morning her new owner was waiting. It was obviously an awkward cross-over time, both old and new owners a little ill at ease, not wanting to feel they were imposing. He was anxious that we should not feel pushed off whilst we didn’t want to impose on that exciting moment when a boat becomes yours.

The last of our belongings were quickly packed, yesterday having been spent loading the car and the bins with most of our personal possessions. All that remained was for Neil to pass on how various features of the boat worked, with her inevitable quirks and characteristics. He tells me he spent a quiet few moments saying goodbye. I couldn’t. I didn’t look back as we drove away. No photographs were taken.

Thursday

We made the decision to sell Seren Môr back in August last year. At the time I wrote a diary entry which I never posted. The heading originally had a question mark. Now, it doesn’t need one.


Back in January 2009 I started writing this blog just before we bought Seren Môr, some three and a half years ago. I called the entry ‘New Year – New Life’ and so it has proved to be. From the process of buying and equipping her, through leaving our jobs and renting out the house, the excitement of leaving the UK behind us, wintering in Spain and finally reaching Greece it has been an extraordinary adventure. There have been periods of high exhilaration and times of sheer terror (for me anyway) along with episodes of fatigue and boredom. Throughout there have been amazing places to visit, places we would never have seen without this journey and extraordinary people we would not otherwise have met. I wouldn’t honestly have missed a moment of it. Even the low times have a particular significance because they triggered decisions that we might not have made otherwise and added new elements to the whole experience.

Having spent two summers in Greece (always our destination), really getting to know the places we visited and honing skills we would never have used otherwise, we knew we had a decision to make. Do we venture onwards, maybe to Turkey or perhaps Croatia? The world is a big place. There are so many places we want to see, so many things we want to do. Is a boat the best option for us or have we actually already achieved what we set out to do? Can we honestly see ourselves still living on board next year, the year after or indefinitely?

Reluctantly we have both come to the decision that it is probably time to consider selling Seren Môr. This is a much harder decision than selling a car or even a house. Not only is she our home but she feels like a living, breathing part of us. She has kept us in comfort and style, the envy of so many people we have met along the way. When her sails fill and her autopilot takes over she needs little input from us. She lets us know when she doesn’t like something and has kept us safe, at times despite us. How can we possibly part company?

This is the tunnel under the railway line connecting the beach front to the old town. The railway runs alongside the whole of the seafront and this is the footpath to the bridge over the river. You've got to laugh.

Monday

It's no good. I can't quite take to Italy. It doesn't help being at a holiday resort out of season and the weather hasn't been the best but even so. Both hotels we've stayed at have been great, posh even. This one is right on the seafront but the train line runs just behind, as it does all the hotels, with window-rattling sound effects. The people are incredibly friendly and helpful even though we barely speak a word of Italian and their English is limited if any.

There's a very attractive old town here in Senigallia with a river running alongside. Typically, though, like the seafront, you can't actually see the water unless you climb up on to the enclosing wall or from the bridge. It's like you're just supposed to know it's there and that is good enough.

The food and drink is probably the best in the world but I just feel ripped off all the time. Take today for example. We had a walk around the old town and a look round the castle, the sun was briefly shining and it was time for our daily Cokes which we ordered in a pavement cafe. Out came the drinks with no less than eight tapas-style little side dishes: green olives, salty butter beans, small pastries, spicy ginger toasts and so on. We picked at these with our drinks, not really hungry after the substantial hotel breakfast, fully expecting the price of the drink to be a bit steep. The bill for two Cokes was 9 euros. 9 euros! Come on! We didn't order any of this stuff nor did we eat much of it, nice as it was.

You can see why so many Italians go to Greece for the summer!

Update: Just had the best meal of our lives and, no, it wasn't pizza! No menu but little taster dishes just kept on coming. Local cured ham and cheese served with toast drizzled with spicy oil, the freshest lasagne, pasta stuffed with courgette and broccoli and a hint of blue cheese, "hawk" (I'm guessing pigeon) casserole with gnocchi, crisp homemade little biscuits, orange tiramisu and finally the lightest, most sumptious chocolate eclair. I can't move now.

Saturday

If it’s Saturday this must be Italy. We drove right across the south coast of France and through Monaco today. We knew we were in France because the language changed at the toll booths and the toilets and food deteriorated. We knew we were driving through Monaco because of the Porsches and tunnels that you always see in films. There was the odd glimpse of sea as well. Into Italy, the tunnels continued but we couldn’t understand a word on the signs any more.

456 miles later we thankfully arrived in our stop over hotel in Arenzano after forking out enough Euros in toll charges to pay the combined national debts of southern Europe. We had a scout around the town having eventually found our way through the back streets (through the old door in the garden centre under the autostrada sign – who’d have thought it?) to the sea front. Not that you could actually see much of the sea from the promenade. Even the front line bars looked out onto the road.

So we sipped a couple of drinks overlooking the petrol station before finding a lovely little restaurant a couple of streets back. No prizes for guessing what we had. Pizza, of course. This is Italy.