Brilliant isnt it?

My heart, having been replumbed ( privately) some 8 years ago with a new shiny, titanium, Aortic valve transplant, goes like a train! Pumping like it never did before. Today I checked my BP and its 182/109?????? Way too high so now my pumps great but the tubes are crap! so here we go again, another round of the specialists and more medication! Yawn!

Perhaps I shouldn`t get involved in trying to put the world to rights after dinner with friends? We touched on such subjects as 1 million immigrants each year being allowed into this country, innadequate health cover, people born in the UK being refused life saving drugs! on the basis of cost (what price a life) Gosh I get so wound up!

I really am fed up with the UK and the way that the government is forcing us further into slavery (Now we have to wait until nearly September before the average man gets out of his annual debt to the government and is allowed to earn money for himself) what can we do? Nothing but vote for the alternative. Will that help? of course not because the immigrants that have now been given British nationality will be voting the same government back in! The indiginous specis of the UK is reducing, any one that can is leaving the sinking ship (Englands green and plesant land) for other countries such as Mexico :o)), Japan, Spain, France, Bulgaria, etc etc etc!

I am beginning to feel like a "rattotuille type rat with three legs and an aversion to water standing on the quay waving the millions of other able, rattotuille type rats off across the sea on their bits of driftwood cardboard boxes and detritus in the hopes of finding a better place!
:o(( These are very sad sad times!

Rant over! Joke time! Man dies at 98 years old from a heart attack, A close friends wife ask his wife how it happened? wife says that in later years they used to have sex only on a sunday to the sound of the slow chimes of the local hurch bell and for years, they had good slow and easy Sex. "he would still be here if it wasn`t for the ice cream vans unexpected visit" she said ! :o)) !!!!!!!!!!!!! Tee Heeee (shouldnt laugh at yer own jokes I know)

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Got to my lunch date safetly, had a great time but! some guy wanted to punch me out, for bullying a guy for que jumping! said he was my man if I wanted bullying! I said that he was very brave or very foolish and that I knew which one he was. He walked away confused! stopped and thought about it and started to walk back but obviously thought better of it (I need this on my 64th birthday? I said that my day had started badly!) My friends arrived and sat down informing me that a fellow friend had been given 6 months to live as he has been diagnosed with stomach Cancer! Nice guy so sad so very sad!) We ate our meal and I said nothing about my "counter" altercation! even though the guy, who over the course of our meal, a head taller than me, now four or five pints heavier, than when he first came in and still ten years younger. kept coming up to the counter to be served, glared at me , (and was duly "surepticiously" blown a kiss, so my wife and guests couldn`t see what I was doing) I fully expected to have it all kick off as we left and went out into the car park but to my surprise and I have to admit a little dismay he was nowhere to be seen! Bring back any memories Squiffy?

The Thames water is now over the pontoons and there is a very high water lever forcast for
00-00 tonight! and tommorow night as the water finally makes its way down from the upper reaches! already there are a coupe of boats sunk on their mooring , somebodys pride and joy gone!

Whoo Hoo todays my birthday!

64 Today! I never thought that I would live this long! mind you it started badly, firstly I put my shorts on back to front (never done that before Tee Hee :o)) ) then I used my aftershave as a mouthwash, I still can`t taste anything! then a friends cat was rushed into pet hospital! Soooo! I guess I had better drive carefully to my lunch with friends.

More Sophie!

Watch out Beckham, here I come!

Thought for today!

"Those believing that authority is the truth, need to consider, whether truth should itself, be the authority?"(Ardie 1978)

What a privilege

What a privilege, yesterday was the first time she was allowed to go out into the garden after having had her innoculations. She (Sophie) was very reticent at first, but apart from playing havok with the local ant population and inhaling as many as she could before I stopped her she went and sat in the middle of the lawn part of the garden totally bemused ( like my old male Gorilla did when he was accidently let out (with that "sh*t I shouldn`t be out here" look) . within about thirty seconds she was exploring. She was startled by a collar dove being "put up" from under a laurel bush, by a wet nose (hers) and sat and watched it as it flew around the garden, finally dissapearing off into a tree. she wasn`t too happy to have a harness on her but soon got used to it.

She smelled the flowers and tried to eat everything that would fit into her mouth! unfortunately she came a cross a stinging nettle in an old pot and sniffed it, to her surprise it bit back and she jumped back and looked at me for reassurance, which she of course got! we ran around a couple of times and I decided that for a first time that was enough! (for me anyway) and we went back indoors! I feel so priviledged to have been able to enjoy her first times out in the world snffing and exploring and learning (not to sniff stinging nettles) she is on a sharp learning curve from now on and its wonderful to be able to enjoy her experiences with her I am indeed very lucky!

The sun setting over a dream destination

Photo thanks to Blue sphere project

Wow! such responsibility?

I have just found out recently, scientists from the Smithsonian institute have now finshed researching the origins of the native american and have found that their DNA contains not only the same A,B,C, that the northern Inuit eskimos have, but also another, which is now called X which europeans (French) have, which has only been found in the very early peoples of Normandy, so now it is being said that some 15,000,000 years ago the eskimos and the europeans Have "known" each other, possibly travelliong in boats across the Atlantic via the vast ice shelves that existed then and probably by skirting them as they did on hunting trips in more modern times taking refuge on the ice in bad weather.

Interestingly enough I am of Norman heritage ( more like a Bloo*y Eric) so perhaps my ancestors were those that really colonised the US long before Coplumbus and his Pooofy Tykes :o)). Just think of it, I could be in line for the throne of the Americas? Mind you, I wouldn`t want to leave my roots here so I would rule from home, I could be a sort of distant monachy, I could be known as "far king" Rob!!! Nah!!!! more like "barking" rob :o)))))))) Yes I`m boored!!!!!!! but the first paragraph is true and I am a norman!

Well thats another one done!

Safetly snugged up at Plymouth Yach services after a battering she showed no real sign of any stress! except a Yankee that refused to be furled ( the furling line became detached from the drum and all attempts to wrap a sail tie around it were just shrugged off by the wind and vessel motion, and a failed zip on the "lazy jack) sail bag arrangement.

Leaving the Cherbourg breakwater. look at that sea. At 0900 it was a calm as a millpond. the forecast said that it would get loud later! and it didn`t dissapoint in anyway! (writers note I wish I could load the photos up in the right order :o(( The second down photo indicates the state of the current, ( I had turned to Port giving me a bit of an advantage from the adverse declining tide) I decided to trade about 3 hours of foul tide for getting some way off before accepting the natural push towards the SE bottom corner of the shipping lane off Alderney, which worked out well, given the time frame, I was to have approximately two tides with me and two against. The journey (unlike my last delivery which took 5 hours from Brighton to Cherbourg in a gin palace) took 25 hours, of the worst weather I have experienced this year so far. The boat a "Trident" was bomb proof and behaved very well I had 7.5 knots through the water at one point with only the Yankee up.

I found out later that there was no electric to the binnacle, so at night, no compass? (quick flash of a torch, , do I hear, which I resorted to then my night vision was totally shot! My course through the hours of darkness 10-30 to 05-20 looked like the trace of a drunken spider who had walked in ink :o)) Hee hee!

Just keeping the cockpit clear of water was more my concern as following seas on one occasion nearly up to the lower crosstrees threatened to break over the stern. Fortunately there was only one breaking sea that I missed, and failed to react too, that swamped the cockpit at about 06.00 this morning.

Having turned along the coast of La Belle France to head down to Guernsey before crossing to Plymouth (my course gave me the minimum distance of crossing of the area used by shipping, and yes I saw lots of them!) whilst just being off the actual TSZ itself, well almost ,as I did just "cut a bit off" the bottom SE corner off Alderney/guernsey :o((. As the weather started to decline the old "Corbiere" light looked very forboding as I hurtle past it at all too close a distance for a sudden "wind swing".

With the initial calm I took the oportunity to set up the Aries wind vane which worked well for about an hour but as the vessel became more over pressed it couldn`t cope and I couldn`t make use of it again during the trip! if there hadn`t been so much weather helm and had the boat been better balanced it would have been fine but in the conditions (which really needed me to "hove to") no.

As I said I encountered many large vessels on the journey mostly mid channel and during the night hours and mostly exiting the TSZ, who`s "Officer of the watch" probably couldn`t believe their eyes at the sight of the lone, small vessel, bucking and rolling her way across the channel, often ahead of them, having just crossed their bow or having veered to approach their stern (in plenty of time not to cause them any stress, of course :o))).

The seas on the UK Salcome side were heaped up towards the shore, very confused (crests breaking from all angles) with winds showing at, often, around 3o to 40 knots, and now I was almost running parallel to them dipping down into the dips and turning into the sometimes quite high, approaching waves to rise safetly ride out of them (works for me!) but! I missed one sneaky one and the wave broke right over the vessel from the port side knocked her flat and shovied her along the surface, scooping up a cockpit full of water before I knew it! Fortunately the cockpit doors were shut tight and the four cockpit drains were terrific, it was gone without any trauma (much! and a resounding "thank heavens for my 20 year old Musto Oceans").

Some time during the night ( yes I know I should have put it in the log) the owners newly installed chart plotter went down with a fault message! something like "I`m not happy with all this bouncing around so I`m going to shut down!" which was, of course, on what I had previously set my course. True to good "Naval tradition" a secondary one had been plotted for such an eventuality on the chart table 128 GPS, but that was not on the bridge! ( and with no compass, you can imagine?) Daylight came slowly as the cloud cover was dense and the nearly full moon not visible. The ever increasing washer dryer action got worse, not really finding any respite untill I surfed through the Eastern entrance of the breakwater at Plymouth yesterday at 09.00 having just passed( but due to heavy swirling mist, not seen much off) the greater Mew stone, and the shagstone.

The next thing, having had no sleep for at least 36 hours and just two packets of Buscuits and a hurried "cook in the bag" french meal and soup ( quite palatable actually, reminding me somewhat of photos I had seen of Marys "Misu concoctions" ;o)) ) I had to brave the great British train journey home via Paddington! £65 quid for a one way smelly slow trip? I could have got better from a pusher on Rose street, Edinborough! :o((

Guess what? as I walked back into my house my wife (bless her!) said "Have a nice trip dear" Just what do I say to that? "Oh! Great thanks! you know how they are? great to be home though" particularily as some 12 hours earlier I had sat nearly waist deep in water wondering where the next wave was to come from! the joys of the "well found" boat this one was a 38 foot excellent, home finished,Trident, God (May be there is one) bless the owner on his build capability!"