More Milford and stuff

Firstly, you folks are now responsible for over 4,000 page reads. This continues to be of concern as at least half of you should be working hard to protect our upcoming pensions or keep the world economy ticking along. There are plenty of other, more wholesome and educational things you could so with your time you know....

Milford is an interesting place to wander around. We raided the local marina restaurant for coffee yesterday as the WIFI in the harbour is rubbish and we couldn't up or download anything of significance. All lovely Microsoft updates are "of significance" of course. Whether they work or not is another question.

Nice coffee, strange mix of clientèle. One man was desperate for a mixed grill (with a jacket potato not chips as he has to be careful!!) at 11:45. For the early lunching German readers, we know this doesn't sound abnormal. For us Brits, it is a touch early - from the look of him, the guy had probably only just finished his big fry up breakfast. Even better, now we have the code we've found that their WIFI signal leaks across to the moorings so....

No big boat trip yet as the gales are lingering until Friday / Saturday and so it is a bit rough out there. Not a huge issue though as there are some nice estuary walks and views:

For the first time in "n" years, where "n" is a large integer, we will not be going to the Southampton Boat Show. All these habits we are breaking in 2013. The £156 train fare wasn't tempting. We are safely cuddled up in the old admiralty dock letting the gales blow themselves through. Patrick has a nice view out from his pilothouse vantage point too so he seems strangely quiet and content:

Felt all nautical by preparing the courses for Swansea and Cardiff instead. Of course, the further up towards Bristol we get, the stronger the tides get and hence timing becomes more critical. 7 knots at springs is a little faster than our normal cruise speed and so would be fun. Getting into Cardiff would not be possible at low tide either. Hence a little planning was completed, the idea being to see if we can hang out in Swansea for a few days and then move on to our planned winter home in Cardiff. We need a longer stay in one place than we originally planned as we have to sort out the Norfolk property so will be away for chunks of time.

As for gainful employment - we still fancy the Fisheries Protection boat if we need to earn some cash. Although the lock gate is now fixed, that hasn't tempted them out. Or even on board. Exhibit A - an empty boat untouched for days:

 Wonder what they do instead. Perhaps they are expert poker players?

The lock here is having some major investment - a new set of gates about mid way between the existing ones to give the option to use one big or one smaller lock. Should make the whole process much faster. The £6 million investment from the EU and Welsh government is interesting. Maybe the berthing fees will get a hike next year! The town has more than its fair share of "99p" stores. Three are next to each other in the new shopping area near Tesco. You can work out what this means about average local incomes etc.