Monday 24th August.
Today was a case of shopping for the week then finish loading the car. We left home around lunchtime and headed off for the two and a quarter hr. run down to the boat, nothing spectacular in fact a relatively quick and easy run down the A1/A14/M11.
As is nearly always the case the weather had been ok until about half hour before we arrived at Fambridge, at which point it started to rain. I wasn’t looking forward to getting the ‘yellow peril’ off the dinghy dock and rowing out to the mooring so I’d taken advantage of Bruce’s (AKA Erbas) offer of using his outboard. He hadn’t planned on being on-board this week as they had so much to do getting the house ready for market, so I’d collected the outboard from him in the latter part of the previous week. Naturally plans change and Bruce and Jane were on Board Erbas when we arrived. So, while waiting for the tide to abate a little we joined them on board for coffee and a chat, during which we were invited to join them for dinner that evening. Bruce and I later extracted his rib from the dinghy dock and he ran me out to Pleinair, which I immediately bought back to the pontoon while Shelagh stayed aboard Erbas, chatting. Once we’d settled on board and offloaded the car we re-joined Bruce and Jane for dinner, a very pleasant evening ensued.
Tuesday 25th August 2015.
Our plan for this week had originally been to travel to the boat Monday, head into St Pauls Cathedral on Tuesday afternoon to meet friends from home and join them observing the choir from St Wulfrums, Grantham who were on a four day visit to London, singing for evensong at St Pauls Cathedral, then on Wednesday potter off down the crouch to Branksfleet overnight before heading off to Clacton for the air show early Thursday. This plan failed miserably on Wednesday when the weather turned, so we spent a whole four days nailed to the pontoon. So Tuesday I pottered around on board doing the odd little job here and there, Tuesday afternoon, Shelagh and I caught the train to London Liverpool street and a tube to St Pauls, the tube strike having been called off the night before, sat through evensong then caught a tube to kings cross where the group had decided to have dinner at The Parcel Yard before they caught their 2100 hrs. train home. Dinner done and Shelagh and I decided to walk from Kings Cross to Liverpool Street Station. We arrived back at Fambridge just before midnight.
Wednesday 26th August 2015
I don’t recall anything spectacular happening today so I suspect that it had been just a day of pottering about and trying to stay out of the wind and rain, although it didn’t rain all day, just on and off enough to really hack me off. Bruce and Jane joined us for dinner in the evening after which Shelagh decided she wanted to play cards. Now, it has to be said, Shelagh plays crib for a team, whereas Bruce, Jane and I haven’t played crib in years. Because of the way we were arranged around the table, this turned into a boys V girls match. I’m pleased to say that after two games the girls gave up, having been beaten quite emphatically, twice. To be really fair the second game was much closer than the first.
Thursday 27th August 2015
Thursday was our final day nailed to the pontoon as the weather definitely looked better for Friday. the day basically consisted of coffee, chat and the occasional stroll up the pontoon. Oh, and we took a car ride to the marina office and paid the bill for my various lift outs/ins and mast stepping.
Bruce ran Jane home early in the day and then came back to Fambridge for the evening. The event being a final drink with Toby and family. Toby had been with Yacht Havens for some years and as he was moving on to new ventures there was a small farewell party in the Ferryboat. Shelagh and I joined them after we had dined on board and a thoroughly enjoyable evening was had by all, even if one of our crowd managed to persuade Bruce to get the guitar out. All in all a good evening, and I believe, some fairly jaded bodies the following morning.
