Tiny Tina, Bristol 5 star luxury and pre-season maintenance

It seemed like an age since we had met or hosted Tina. Her hectic social life and the crew's back issues had collided to prevent a catch up. Amazingly, despite rotten weather and all sorts of train trouble (on a non-strike day too), Tina made it to us. 

We amused ourselves with food, wine, gin and lots of chatting. A walk at Barrybados between rain showers was good as was a visit to Cowbridge to see Lorna's new flat and enjoy cuddles with Pip and Poppy:

Yes, Tina looked very ready to dognap him. 

Wandering around Penarth we did wonder about how many folks were involved in producing this sign. Someone ordered it, someone printed it, someone installed it. We wonder if they had the "what is an APNR camera" thought:

Or perhaps they were all dyslexic?  For the non UK readers, ANPR refers to an automatic number plate recognition camera. No idea how they scrambled the letters.

We revisited the rather excellent Bush Inn at St Hilary which we've complimented before on their lamb burgers. We are delighted to report that they are still excellent, only now served with toasted halloumi in them too. You need to try them out.

As a kind of "pre departure for the summer cruise thing" we booked a couple of nights in the rather nice looking Berwick Lodge hotel, near Bristol, and took the Toddlers along too. Despite more cruddy weather (kind of a theme building here) we rather enjoyed the amazingly decorated bedrooms, building and the excellent food and friendly staff too. Have a peek at Berwick Lodge website  and before you comment, no we did not pay the rack rate for the rooms. There was, as you would expect from us, a deal on offer...... The rooms were rather special:

and the huge bathroom was as grand. A return visit is called for.

Maintenance News:

Well, as there is a rumour that spring is coming (hard to believe at the moment), so we felt that all the pre-season maintenance had to get some attention. Fuel filters were swapped out, main engine gearbox oil and filter, the genset had a 6 monthly oil and filter change as did the main engine. The genset was treated to a new water pump impeller and the main engine an air filter. The captain then treated himself to a much needed gin. 

Less amusing was swapping out the comms battery. The boat is basically a 24v setup but for devices that are addicted to 12v (like the radios), we have a seperate battery with its own charger that runs this stuff. The battery was the original (ie 2006 manufacture) and was getting to the stage where it struggled to accept charge properly - AGMs are normally good at that so it had to go. The only drawback was that the battery weighs 30Kg and is under the floor in the main cabin:

Lugging that out was even harder as the old battery didn't have any built in handles. At least the new one did and here it is fastened down in its new home:

Having handles almost justified the eye-watering price of Lifeline AGMs. Only almost. 

One of the least favourite jobs is adjusting the valve clearances on the genset as it involves lots of leaning over the frame of the sound enclosure. It needed to be done though and so the genset had its lid removed and the clearances all checked. Three of the eight valves had tightened up a bit and so needed adjusting. The cover was treated to a new seal and then rebuilt. 

A few other little tidy up jobs and the boat felt kind of ready for adventures. The weather had other ideas as the really wet and windy stuff continued. 

Going foreign - but by plane - Menorca time

After many months (years indeed) of not going off by plane on a break, we decided that the time had come to change all that. This time it was not to the usual Canary islands break for some sun. Instead we were off to Menorca. Why? Well, the rather nice guy who was part owner of the company which the crew ran whilst working, has a villa there which he kindly offered to lend to us. A hard offer to refuse (although we had done so before for no obviously sensible reason).

Getting there off season limits the flight options. The only direct offering is with Vueling from Gatwick. Not an ideal departure point for us but it had to be done. The crowds felt strange after only using smaller airports for a while. Somehow we resisted the lure of 'Spoons in the departure area:

and behaved ourselves until the flight was called. At Mahon airport, Bernie had arranged for one of his "local cars" (yes, he has 2 on the island and 22 in total) to be left ready for our evening arrival. After a battle with the parking ticket machine we managed to steer his Saab Aero to the villa, settle in and this lovely view from the living area greeted us the following morning:

As Menorca virgins, we were keen to explore a little. Or even a lot. Sadly the weather picked our visit timing to go seriously south. After 17 degrees C and sun the day before our arrival, we had some huge gales and plenty of chilly windy weather so taking advantage of the drier days was important. Initially, we headed right across the island to Ciutadella, the original capital. Some stunning buildings:

and the port entrance area with some unusual adornments:

We had to add to our lighthouse picture collection with one that is totally unlike all of the UK versions we have shared before:

We forced ourselves to a rather good Italian restaurant lunch and then back to Cala Llonga  and the pretty huge villa:

5 bedrooms on the first floor alone so we kind of rattled around in it - rather happily though!

This is the Cala that it is situated on - you can see that the clouds were already beginning to look threatening:

and here is a great picture of Bernie, the owner and his massively cute dog Beau. OK, Bernie is massively cute and scarily intelligent too:

Outings involved a few coastal trips, only a few thanks to the windy and soggy weather. We did head to the rebuilt fisherman's village though, Binibeca Vell. Described in the guide literature as a Marmite place we kind of liked it. Yes, not all original but nicely done and very quiet during the tourist off-season too. Pretty coastline:

and just to prove that we had some sun, a working sundial on one of the houses:

which look a lot like this:

The history is interesting and worth a read - have a look at wikipedia

Of course, we had to suffer after the sunny day and the fates certainly conspired. A full day of rain and strong winds brought down a palm tree that was already due for removal in the front of the property. The local fire brigade and police pitched up and we were treated to blue flashing lights and the noise of chainsaws as the firemen chopped it up. Luckily it didn't hit any people, cars, boats or anything of value bar Bernie's fence and a bit of wall:

As you can see, it was a chunky tree:

After all that excitement, and explaining to the nice Police lady who spoke little English that we did not own the property, we had kind of settled down when the wind changed direction and decided to create a huge downdraft in the chimney of the wood burning stove. The smoke coming out into the room was legendary, and the smell that it left lingered for days and gave us the opportunity to try out various different air fresheners with variable results. Our timing for the visit was impeccable it seems.

The capital Mahon was enticing. It offered many beautiful buildings, friendly folks, an amazing coffee and cake stop and on Balearic day, a national holiday, one of the strangest processions we have seen. Two large figures carried slowly around, followed by a model horse and a very dodgy band:

The waterfront area was lovely, plenty of traditional Menorcan style craft to admire:

and offered some happy if chilly opportunities to up our step count.

Bernie told us that we should go up the hill / mountain in the centre of the island as it was a good viewpoint. Finding a clearish day was a challenge but we managed:

We were busy enjoying ourselves when a coach load of tourists arrived. Er, what? Totally the wrong time of the year, we thought that we were almost alone with the locals! They did all the usual annoying coach party things so we left a little quicker than we otherwise might have. Bernie's other good suggestion was a visit to the Mascaro factory outlet shop for leather goods. The crew did rather well, the credit card less so:

although being reversible it might halve the cost?

Back in Mahon for lunch, we saw another strange procession / protest / whatever:

A bunch of people carrying what looked like a bed with sacks of rubbish on it, backing into the entrance to a church with an even dodgier band than the last one. No idea what it was all about but it made Morris dancing look relatively sane.

Our last day was spent enjoying the capital once more and the harbour views:

before we had to head for the airport. We took a taxi to save Bernie's car racking up some big parking costs there. The taxi driver was a lovely lady who relieved us of around 25 Euros and a year of our lives thanks to stress.

Lovely lovely island. We will go back sometime.