DON'T PANIC

 This was us last week going for a sail.Richard the boat yard owner kindly took a photo of us. It is something very hard to do is get a picture of your own boat sailing. Still not sure about the red sail. Seems more appropriate on an old gaffer boat, but the only other one we had to fit was celtic green and it was definately not going on. Not that i am against football or celtic or any team , but my former boss was a celtic fanatic and the way my day went depended on what result and how well the game was played. Well and truely had enough of all that.. We are in here , third row in. I have at times forgotton where i parked my car in a car park. I now know that it may have been difficult to find my car , at least cars are different colours . You could be lost in here for hours. .  Was taking to a guy and he realised i was scottish so he told me to go and hunt this beauty down. She has been just about been done up and is all the way from Stornoway. Once a fishing boat ...

 Well in a couple of days , we will be off, All the way to Holland. So some pictures and memories. Bedwells has been great. Richard and Brother Steve are a brillant team and have been so very helpful. We would realy have been stuck without them. So if you you do have a boat near Walton . Then this is the place to store it fix it and have it on the pond.. The whole boatyard has a really warm family atmosphere.  The whole of Walton is lovely and this shop was a godsend. It has everything i needed and lots i wanted but had to remember i am on a boat and couldn't fit it in. Really friendly staff..And his delivery vans are really special.  Mark at the helm of Windotter. Just look at that smile.. The woman beside him is wonder woman Petra and the barge belongs to her friend Jane. Jane is an amazing person  and i really liked her from the first minute i met her. Full of get up and go and an infinite amount of patience.  Yacht club and pond. We have been fed ...

 Mark found monty with a flat tyre on the drivers side this morning. I haven't mucked about with the camera , that is the angle it is sitting at. Mark jacked it up as little as possible and squeezed the tyre on as you can see from the piccy below. Things would not have went well if it had coped. There would have been a crane involved and a lovely little red boat below in the pond would not i think welcomed the visit of over a tonnes worth of landrover on the deck. Could have been very embarassing and expensive . There was a combined phew from both of us when he let the jack back down. as you can see the tyre has just perished. can't complain it was a second hand one and cheap , So it did well , bloody nice tyre  I do have to apologise for the tyre piccy being at the bottom. I have said before i am not techy but it doesn't help when the tech iss not techy either.  This is Tom at his most comfortable. he was snoring and his claws were all out. The sheep flee...

 Petra guiding Mark guiding the sails.YEA ! ! They are on. The original mainsail is not great but Petra has said measure it and look for a second hand one. Ours is fine just has lost abit of shape at the bottom and seems to be a bit small. The red jibsail is not the original but far better. We do have the original again abit dinky.  We had a really good day for it , light winds  and not to warm. One more thing ticked off the list  WHOS A PRETTY GIRL , LAL IS ARENT YOU GIRL. Funny thing to say but it feels like she was having a good time to . It seemed a shame but we had to tuck them up again , all nice and neat under the sail cover. Petra is happy to pilot us across with these sails so they must be ok.  Mark had the engine going again as we are going out tomorrow motoring up the channel and back to give the engine a test. There was some anxiety as she started letting out diesel in to the water and is a bit smokey. It cleared up after...

Mummy barge has her baby back and safe by her side. What a morningWe were to go with Petra in her car to Titchmarsh which is only a few  miles away and pick up Wind otter the lovely cream barge in the picture. It would be at about 10 ish that would mean we would be back to Walton before the gate closed and help another boat following us to moor up. We were relaxed and ready when Brother Steve came wandering over and him and Mark were discussing the bow of our boat. I popped my head up said hello . He then slipped in that two boats were coming in when the gate opened as well as Windotter and Concrete Steves Arion.We just carried on talking and then he said we would have to move our boat around to the bank to make room. Now earlier in the week when we had moved LAL we had had to move somebodies little rowboat out of the way and tie it on a mooting post. This wee boat had overnight got itself stuck under the staging and flooded sort of half sinking. We had to empty this before w...

. What a fan dabby dosy day  This is Windotter She was built in 1990 . A replica of the dutch fishing vessels. Petras friend Jane owns her and Petra has been doing abit of maintainence work on her. Family had sailed her last week and had left her at Brightlingsea. It is a huge marina and even has sea taxis to get you to your boat. We got a lift from one of Petras friends. Today we were crew for Petra who will be our pilot for the channel crossing and has been the biggest of helps and i am pretty sure a forever friend.She her self owns a original dutch barge which is 114 yrs old and she is also dutch. I was abit worried about crewing , really because i didn't want to disappoint Petra . She is one of those superwomen who most women would like to be but can rarely achieve..I don't normally feel like a girly girl but next to Petra all i need is the inch long bright pink acrylic nails and i am there. I also didn't want to cause harm to Janes beautiful barge and Jane is a...