Boat moving and shoulder fun (only it wasn't)

During a little wander around Cheltenham, we discovered how the well heeled folks there got a bargain at the local John Lewis store:

This struck us as a cracking deal. Perhaps we should have partaken and then eBayed them for a profit? Actually £400 for a hair styler sounds extortionate to us. Especially as the captain has little use for hair care products. He can count all of his remaining ones quite quickly.

Returning to Penarth we had the fun of another ocean voyage. Only this time using someone else's diesel. How good is that? Yes, the huge trip was moving Martin and Inge's boat Malaspina from her temporary mooring in the marina to a hammerhead berth directly astern of us.  Our new view aft, which looks way better than when we had the plastic navy pretend warship thing (that cannot go to sea in bumpy conditions) to admire:

From the aft cockpit we get a rather good view of the sparkly clean and tidy Malaspina in her new home:

Penarth is a bit of a Nordhavn creche, two of the three N47s that are in the UK at the moment are berthed next door to each other. The third one is also in a Boatfolk marina too, Haslar in Gosport. Captain Rae, the ex Lightning pilot proper chap who has starred in here many times before, has his 47 residing in Dun Laoghaire at the moment. He is so missing out although he is probably enjoying better Guinness and rugby success..

As the boats are pretty rare, Penarth marina added a Facebook post:

which then was reposted by the Nordhavn Europe folks. We really MUST start asking for royalties.

Moving Malaspina was a little weekend job, as was a chance to get out on the Brompton bikes on a dry and not too windy day. Then reality struck. The captain had an appointment for shoulder surgery - to remove a spur of bone which was abrading the tendons over time and causing rather too much discomfort in his right shoulder. So, a trip to the Vale hospital, a rather nice room: 

and then a less than nice keyhole operation. Actually being under a general anaesthetic you really cannot tell how unpleasant it is having four holes cut into your shoulder, a camera inserted and a chunk of bone ground away. Coming too again, the food options were very tempting only most were too tricky to eat single handed (and using the non-dominant one too):

Pasta was his friend. All in all, the care from the staff there was excellent. 12 hours in the place more or less and they made it as good as it could possibly be. The captain left with a rather natty sling, plenty of painkillers, exercise sheets and "something" to help with the possible after-effects of the codeine tablets they provided. 

After a couple of days, the sling could be discarded except for overnight and Dave the doorstop dog (a purchase in Cheltenham for the Toddlers) seemed to quite like his new coat:

Fortunately the initial recovery went OK, the consultant reported the surgery as very successful (ie the patient didn't expire) and the painkillers could be eased off way quicker than we expected. Plenty of exercises and being ultra careful follow for at least 6 weeks. We hope that things will be ready in time for the new cruising season.