Holidays!

Paul and I managed 2 weeks sailing with our friends Marika and Marco who'd come over from Rome to join us. Unfortunately the weather remained unsettled for the whole 2 weeks and although we had some sun we also had a lot of wind and rain... This first picture is of me as we rounded Portland Bill going west. You can see that I was wearing all my waterproof gear!

This next picture was taken in Dartmouth, Devon and as you can see, the weather wasn't too bad there! We went for a beautiful walk along the coast.

We managed to get as far as Falmouth in Cornwall before heading back. We passed the Eddystone Lighthouse on the way back which is south of Plymouth.

The End of Term

It's always a bit sad to reach the end of the year and to say goodbye to so many students but I'm sure you'll keep in touch and I am looking forward to the holidays and being able to enjoy all this lovely weather. Good luck everyone and don't forget to keep up your blogs!

Round the Island Race

On Saturday Paul and I sailed in the annual race around the Isle of Wight in our boat, together with three old friends from university who sailed with us in the sailing club there. We didn't do quite as well as last year but it's such an amazing race - over 1,700 boats take part and it's fantastic to see so many yachts on the water. The weather wasn't as windy as last year but we saw one boat dismasted and some other yachts and a high speed ferry (!) aground! Apparently it took two hours to get the ferry off the sand! Our start was at 08.50 and we crossed the finish line at about 21.10 so it was a very long day but well worth it and we had lots to eat to keep us going on the way round. We had to have a bit of champagne to celebrate at the end!

What's been happening!

Well, lots of things have been happening since my last post.

First of all our daughter Jess had to have an operation on 1st June to have a sesamoid bone removed from her foot. As you can see her foot is now all bandaged up and she's got to rest it as much as possible for 2 weeks until she has the stitches taken out. She's very bored, just sitting round the house watching DVDs and doing puzzles books and I have to run around making her cups of tea and looking after her!

On Sunday Paul and a friend did the triathlon which was held at Blenheim Palace. First of all you have to swim for 750 m in the cold lake, then cycle for 20 km and then run for 5 km. It was exhausting just watching!

On Tuesday I went to Centre Court at Queen's Club to watch some of the Aegon Championships with my Mum and some friends. We had a great day and watched loads of tennis, with only one short rain delay. The final match of the day was Andy Murray and Lleyton Hewitt playing doubles together so we had to stay and watch that but sadly they lost! Let's hope Murray does better in the singles.

Sailing again!

We've just spent a great bank holiday weekend sailing with 4 friends around the Solent. The weather was like summer and we visited lots of our favourite places: Beaulieu, Yarmouth, Cowes etc. We watched the container ship coming into Southampton and then followed it up to its mooring at the container port at the top of Southampton Water. We passed oil tankers and bulk carriers too and also the stylish new cruise ship 'Queen Mary II' which is apparently 345 m in length and cost around $800 million to build!

Lymington

Paul and I spent a day down in Lymington yesterday which is on the coast in the New Forest. We often sail there but it was nice to be down there with the car and able to explore a bit more and have a look at some houses. Maybe we'll live there some day! We walked from Keyhaven to Hurst Castle and the picture above shows the Castle and the Lighthouse at the end of the point. Walking on that shingle was hard work!

Walking

On Saturday a group of parents and our daughters went for a great walk from Warborough up Wittenham Clumps and back again to help prepare them for their trek to Everest Base Camp - sadly 120 m of height on the Clumps doesn't compare with Everest but at least we're getting them out walking and having fun!

This was the view from Dorchester up to the Clumps.