Then it was Xmas and New Year sneaked up too

We were so happy to get back to Penarth. Oh yes. As we crossed the Severn bridge, so the rain started. Then it got heavier:

and as you can see from the image above, wildly windy too. 68 mph wind gusts and plenty of rain meant a day huddled up on board just getting reacquainted with the boat and watching some mindless TV. 

We then enjoyed a few days of endless grey gloom and very high humidity. Despite the double glazing in the boat we were busy battling condensation. We had a few bike rides and although it wasn't actually raining, we came back wet. All most depressing. The gloom lifted when Simon and Nikki invited us to a Xmas concert by the Cantemus chamber choir. They were seriously good. Sitting in the local church listening to them with a glass of red seemed like the ideal way to prepare for Xmas. 

In the lead up to the big day, the crew has a birthday to celebrate. The only problem is that celebrating a couple of days before Xmas day is tricky. Everywhere wants to provide a Xmas lunch menu and as most people are already off work, the places tend to be very busy and noisy. Far from fun for old people like us who like a gentile time, bone china cups, deferential staff and a starched tablecloth. 

Well, the solution was simple - have brunch in the Galley cafe within the marina area. The two guys who run it are great, it wasn't too busy and as you can see, the crew was half impressed with the extravagant birthday lunch menu:

Actually, it is a great place and ideal if you want a cheeky tasty breakfast or lunch "out". We tend not to as being 5 minutes slow walk from the boat, it seems silly. Except on a birthday of course.

Xmas eve was great - becoming almost a tradition now. We had the Czech republic style of Xmas dinner on Xmas eve, after seeing the first star (streetlight had to do) and finding the golden pig. It was a little bit marred when Moxie their fox red labrador who was so excited to see visitors, hit the end of her tail yet again and sprayed blood over the walls once more. It had to be taped up three times that evening. Poor Moxie. She is massively cute though:

Xmas day was amusing. Anne (better known as Izzy the dog's owner) had bought us a rather special gin during our visit to the Morgan cars factory as a present from Izzy:

The rather blurred picture is not because we had been sampling it and were "piston gin". Honestly. Continuing the dog Xmas theme, Izzy had some presents from her friend Moxie:

Those hounds do rather well.

We had a wonderfully quiet bike trip to build up an appetite, thoroughly enjoyed a bottle of Nyetimber fizzy English wine (V good!!) and then, like most of the rest of the nation, enjoyed the final episode of Gavin and Stacey.  What more could you want?

Well, a whirlwind trip to Hythe to take Mrs Toddler to the hospital for a lovely eyeball injection. The traffic was horrid. The service stations were overflowing with humanity and their cars. The shops and cafes in them looked like they had been ram-raided. It was grim. The good bit was collecting Izzy the doglet and bringing her back with us.

Naturally she wanted some barrage and ball fun:

That evening we went back to the Galley for New Year's eve with Simon and Nikki and what seemed like half the boat owners in the marina. They do evening cocktails, tapas etc and we had a rather excellent and social time.

Our New Year's resolution was to get Izzy some culture - we took her to the National Trust gardens at Dyffryn. Lovely area, not too busy considering it was holiday time and a warm tea room. As you can see, being wrapped up was necessary:

unless you have your own brown fur coat. The sad bit was that the trust doesn't give the gardens' team a spell checker:

but they were good at apostrophes. 

The house isn't open to the public but is impressive:

Yet another place built on the wealth from coal mining. 

Our social lives picked up again with the arrival of Martin and Inge, the prior owners of the Nordhavn 47 Malaspina who have starred in here before. They came to stay on board with us for a couple of nights as part of a round the world trip from their home in Canada that involved Xmas in Thailand and getting stuck in Iceland en route to Heathrow. Don't ask why, it is too complicated for mere mortals to understand but it involves staff tickets on airlines. It was wonderful to see them again.

Martin, known by Izzy as "Lamb man" after she cadged plenty of it from him in Guernsey a while ago, seemed happy delivering doggy massages:

By pure coincidence, Neil the new owner of Malaspina was also down in the marina and on his new / Martin and Inge's old boat. So, we had a pretty busy time and the doglet enjoyed persuading 5 people to cuddle or treat her. Izzy had been in doggy boot camp having put on some ballast around Xmas (she is not alone) and luckily was already back to her fighting weight.

Our exclusive little club, the SNOC (small Nordhavn owners club) had a quorum with the Captain, Neil and Martin around. Captain Rae the ex helicopter, Lighting fighter, BA pilot and Wetherspoons devotee  was sorely missed, However, we raised a glass (bottle?) to him:

You could ask why Martin has a nearly empty bottle in his hand but that would be inappropriate. 

On the basis that all good things have to end, we sadly loaded up the car, added the doglet and headed to Hythe. Sad to hand back Izzy but vaguely excited about our next adventure. 

Maintenance News:

One particularly wet and misty morning the heating system fired up happily but we saw what looked like smoke pouring out of the vent in the area where the exhaust hose goes from the diesel boiler to the skin fitting. A leaky exhaust hose is very bad news. So, the captain went out into the rain to investigate. It certainly didn't smell like smoke, steam perhaps but with a strange smell. To be safe, the heating was turned off and we burned some shore power using electric heating until the rain finally stopped (the following morning!)  

Access to the area involved means taking out the gas cylinders, cutting free and unscrewing the sealed panel at the side of the gas locker and then doing all sorts of painful things to your body to look at the exhaust hose itself. The way it was fitted during commissioning for the original owner by Osmotech leaves a lot to be desired. After firing up the heater again, we figured that it was steam with a nice strong smell of exhaust insulation wrap added in. It looked like the heavy rain had driven water into that area through a fitting on the top of the transom so a re-seal job was needed. Way way simpler than replacing the hose itself though. Sometimes you can dodge a bullet it seems.

That time of the year again

In an attempt to avoid the depressing grey UK winter weather and to get some warmth into our bones, we did the "almost usual" pilgrimage to Lanzagrotty. It involved a trip to Hythe, taking Mrs Toddler to the hospital and then a stupidly early start to get to Bournemouth airport for the first of the three flights leaving that day. Yes, three. Wildly busy place.

Playa Blanca and the Rubicon Palace hotel were as nice as ever and most of the controls on our 66 thousand kilometer VW Polo hire car seemed to work. All was well. Since we'd not been there in many years, we became proper tourists and visited Timanfaya - the volcano area where you get a great coach trip around the craters:

and various holes in the lava rock from the last eruption that was many years ago:

Seeing how a few lichens and little bushes have managed to make a foothold in the rocky landscape always amazes us, Nature is pretty resilient it seems. Back at the visitor centre you have to see the chicken being cooked over the heat from the volcano and the tourist special of making steam:

It was good to see that area again. 

We managed a few good walks despite the crew having a grumbling hip. Someone near the Marina Rubicon has one of the strangest "garden" layouts we've ever seen:

where anything they can put their hands on seems to have a role in making the outside space look more and more ridiculous - or should that be entertaining:

It should probably be entertaining but we are getting too old and crotchety to appreciate the artistry involved we fear.

A trip to Arrecife the capital is always good. The marina there had a most eclectic collection of craft including this one that proves having lots of money doesn't mean you have lots of taste when you pick the hull colour of your yacht:

No photoshopping was involved in the colours above....

A trip to the cafe on the 17th floor of the one tower block hotel is always a must do, not because the coffee and cake is especially great, it is just for the views:

We had been fortunate to bump into a lovely couple of folks when checking in to the hotel and spent a fair amount of time chatting with them. As we had a hire car, they got loaded into the rather cosy back seat of the elderly Polo and carted off to El Golfo so they could admire the little lagoon area that has been turned bright green by some overactive algae:

Kind of distinctive. Unfortunately, we arrived at the time there were 5 tourist coaches in the car park with the resulting mass of humanity shuffling around the place and looking generally lost. Luckily things thinned out so that we could properly enjoy a coffee and cake stop there in relative quiet.

We also dragged the poor folks with us to Puerto Calero where the coffee and cake thing was repeated. This rather expensive and decidedly fast looking yacht was high and dry - get the size of her from the "little" car underneath:

Our social activities also included visiting the Dutch couple that we met last year in Marina Rubicon who were having a sea trial on a lovely Nordhavn 52 (stretched version of our boat). They duly bought the boat and have been using her a lot and sorting out several upgrades. It was lovely to catch up and see their progress:

Of course, two weeks goes way too quickly. We soon ended up back in Bournemouth airport, feeling the cold and waiting an age for the bags to be delivered from the one plane that had landed. Baggage reclaim is always freezing and painfully slow there. From our rather nice Lanzarote hotel, to the Premier Inn at Ringwood was quite a change but the staff were great and Anne (Izzy the dog's owner) joined us so a good homecoming was enjoyed. Izzy has a new role, modelling for Xmas cards:

Not sure is the antlers suit her but.... The card kicked off Xmas well.