Apologies for the long delay with this blog. We had a busy time in the UK visiting friends and family.  The sun shone for a couple of days and then reverted to the usual grey just in case we were ever tempted to want to live there again.   We always say we won’t try and do so much but ended up driving 1500 miles from London to Bristol to Southampton to London to Bristol to Swansea to Bristol to Portsmouth to Devon to Bristol to London. Hospital appointments were kept and I can report Andy is still in remission and doing well.  To those of you we managed to see thank you for the lovely dinners and comfy beds.   It was so good to see you.   And to those we didn’t, next time!

We flew down to Corfu nearly two weeks ago. For those reading this blog for the first time, we have bought a Dufour 32, an ex Sailing Holidays charter boat, practically on a whim.  We were on their stand at the Southampton Boat Show and just happen to ask if they had any old boats for sale.  Since Andy’s illness he had  lost all his confidence with sailing and we thought that this little boat might be just the thing to get him back in  the swing of it.  We bought is sight unseen so it was with slight trepidation that we arrived at Gouvia Marina in Corfu.  Luckily, for a 16 year old boat,  it has turned out to be cracking.  It needed a few things doing to it but we’ve  sorted most of them out.  Sailing Holidays gave us all the spares they had as they no longer keep Dufours including 4 spare sails so we did quite well.  Andy has fitted an auto helm for the tiller (a first for me) and we had a new spray hood and sail bag fitted to go with the bimini so we’re all set for a summer in the Ionian.   It is however about a third of the size of our lovely catamaran Matilda so we are still looking for places to store things and wondering why we brought so much!  It’s perfect for us but will be snug when the family come to visit!

I had, however, forgotten the delights of the chest fridge. What you want is always at the bottom!