In a change to my usual train based updates, this update is being composed on the Le Havre-Portsmouth ferry by the wonders of technology, using the free internet access in the Club Lounge. I arrived in France yesterday morning by air at 9.35 into La Rochelle airport, where Kevin was waiting to meet me having spent the last week apart. Another of my now legendary flying visits to return our car home after last weekend's delivery trip.
It's been an exhausting few weeks for both of us and when I arrived at the boat the sun was shining and we had it to ourselves for the first time since the first night when we slept amongst the boxes and bags. I had the usual tour of updates and progress since my last visit, as usual I could see the hard work Kevin had put in in just a week, in fact when I think back to that first night it is amazing to think we have only had the boat for just over two weeks. Although Kevin and I are used to spending time apart in the week as I have been travelling away with work now for over 5 years, this last week has probably been one of the hardest. I have been frantically busy, working all week whilst trying to pack up our house ready for exchange hopefully Friday next week. This may not seem like a large task but we are keeping only a few boxes in my sister's attic and what we are taking on the boat everything else has to be disposed of somehow. We are very lucky that our house buyer wishes to buy all of our furniture too which has helped enourmously, which is just as well because the sale is going through very quickly (fingers crossed).
The other reason for the additional pressure this week is that we have both decided that it is not worth the money for the additional work that I had planned to do over the summer to be living our dream apart. Therefore I have booked two weeks off work to do the Canaries delivery trip with Kevin and if the house sales goes through as planned then I will be handing in my notice as soon as we have completion. However, I like to think that we have become the kings of flexible planning which should come in very useful in the coming few years, so this further change in schedule should not cause us any concerns. After all, craming what I had expected to be 3 months of time into a couple of weeks should be fine. I only have a company to close down, house to sell and wedding to organise, I'm sure it will be fine!
I think the side to all of this that you don't really often read is just how difficult it can be in the weeks running up to a big jump off like this in throwing / giving away / eBaying possesions, saying goodbye to friends and family with just photos of a boat to look at and other peoples blogs to remind you why you are doing all of this. I think that was part of what has made my last week very hard work was disposing of our possessions in wet and rainy UK in the house on my own. However, for all of the those people out there planning / thinking of it, I can tell you that the one day I just had with Kevin on the boat has made all of that disappear, we both spent the day saying how sure we were that this was the best thing we had ever done. I think the 27 degree heat helps! It's amazing the uplifting affect on the spirit that the sun gives, but it was also the critical decision not to push ourselves to go out sailing despite the lack of wind in further preparation for the crossing or to do anymore jobs or anything else. We infact decided to take the day off for the first time in what seems like months. Kevin prepared and absolutely delicious lunch prepared with local fresh ingredients enjoyed al fresco on the cockpit table in the shade of the bimini. In the afternoon, we walked along the seafront, people watched in cafes, ate ice creams (ok so that was just me!), wondered round the supermarket buying fresh seafood and wine stocks up for the boat while we still have access to cheap but excellent wine and a car.
Even visiting the supermarket which we both find a terrible chore at home, is fun in a foreign country, particularly one which takes it's food as seriously as France. We ended up with fresh prawns, the obligatory bagette and half a fresh crab enjoyed on the cockpit table (outside) in the setting sun with a glass of champagne courtesy of our brokers, which we were too exhausted to drink on our first night and which Kevin had been saving for us to enjoy together since. Absolute perfection and definitely worth all of the effort.
I know I should probably be terrified as it is my first big crossing, but I am really excited about the delivery. As the delivery skipper is already booked we will keep him on for the trip as I am sure we will both learn a lot from him. So I fly back out on Wednesday, Tim arrives on Thursday and hopefully we set off shortly afterwards, depending on the weather. Ironically our original departure date would have been perfect weather wise, but one advantage of the slightly later departure, is one that I get to go along and two that we will managed to get all of the electronics fitted before we set off. We have a basic set we go with the boat which would have been adequate for the delivery but now we will have everything up and running. So fingers crossed the weather holds a bit longer.
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