A thankfully quieter, canine focussed time (except for the weather)

Departing Hythe and toddlerville, we were amazed to see that the repairs to the culvert and bridge leading into Hythe marina must be nearly complete. We saw the digger removing the shuttering and earth barrier that had been protecting the working area from flooding. This repair work had only begun in May of course..... 

On the way back to Penarth, we stopped off for a most convivial coffee and cake with Anne, Izzy the dog's owner. Anne brought along one of her greatest admirers:

who is a bit large to be the lapdog he believes he is.

We headed back to Wales with a small brown furry thing on the back seat of the Defender. The small furry thing just had to be taken to Barrybados for her regular beach fun:

on what was a beautiful day too, with Barrybados itself looking most appealing:

A little dog cannot go to the beach every day of course and the walk around the barrage with a chance to chase a ball and other dogs is also pretty high on the happiness stakes. On the way we saw a huge (for Cardiff docks that is) fast ferry in there. Not at all normal. Then John, the local photographer who has kindly provided images for us before, sent through this sequence of her arrival into the commercial lock. A couple of tugs were helping move her stern as needed:

bearing in mind that her beam is 26.65 metres and the lock is only 27 metres wide. Oh yes, quite a squeeze. You can see the poor little fender hanging down the side in this picture. We feel quite sorry for it:

They managed to thread the needle rather well:

and get her fully into the lock:

Apparently she will be laid up in Cardiff for the winter season when the Irish sea traffic and conditions don't warrant a fast cat service. The economics of that service would be interesting to work out!

Typically, the nice weather and happy dog walks in the sun could not continue. Storm Ciaran was rapidly heading in with some truly horrible conditions forecast in the English channel. The 10.3 metres in this image refers to the expected wave height just off the channel islands and the red colours give you an idea of how unfriendly things were going to be:

For non-boating folks, waves 10.3 metres high (with quite a short wavelength too) is something we've never seen in any channel weather forecasts. When we crossed over and back this summer, the waves were more like half a metre in height and very nice it was too. The Penarth area was pretty calm by comparison, in the nice blue bit well tucked up the Bristol Channel. 

So, whilst the channel coast and especially the channel islands had a pasting, we sat on board, put up with a bit of "rock and roll" from the wind gusts, some heavy rain showers and not much more.We were lucky. Around our home, there was quite a widespread flood warning:

and a river flooded the reservoir / water treatment works for the area so 18,000 houses in total were without water for a couple of days. Funnily enough it didn't make the main news on the TV or in the press but when fewer homes were impacted for way less time in the "Guildford / Godalming stockbroker belt" it was hot news. Clearly our area is expendable.

Once the weather calmed down, it was back to life as usual, amusing the doglet. She especially loved another Barrybados trip but this time with Moxie the Fox Red Labrador. Despite a significant age and size difference, Izzy did not give up chasing her or the ball. She was happy to pick up anything that Moxie dropped too:

After all that exercise, she deserved a chicken treat:

The couple of weeks of dog sitting seemed to go by very quickly indeed and the crew's step count seemed to upset her competitors in the "Fitbit weekly challenge".

Maintenance news:

Well, not a lot got done really. We had the Sub-Zero man come to check over our fridge/freezer unit and it got a clean bill of health. We did a few bits and bobs on Malaspina, the other Nordhavn 47 here to help Martin and Inge and got someone in to look at the work involved in recovering our headlinings. Some of the glue holding the foam to the boards / vinyl is beginning to give up the unequal struggle with age.

The captain had plenty of maintenance though. A sore shoulder was taken to the osteopath three times and then, on her advice, to a consultant who specialises in shoulders and elbows. Looks like a tendon is torn so there is an MRI and X-ray looming to see how good / bad the damage is. All related to a fall when walking the little dog in Penarth back in February, focussed on her and not paying attention to a raised paving stone, Grrrrr. 

A final thought. You are a ghoulish lot. The last post with images and videos of the Benson fire had twice as many reads as a more "normal" (if ever any of this stuff could pretend to be normal) posts. The nicest interpretation is that you were worried about us. The reality is probably something else. Perhaps we simply know a bunch of pyromaniacs.