Kitchengate and the storms

Having rented out our house for a few years, the original builders' kitchen (which was surviving well when we lived in the house) looked rather sad. With the toddlers in residence, it was time for a refurb. So, we duly left the boat for a while, deposited the toddlers at the airport ready for their holiday and emptied out the old cabinets.

As a light relief during the work, we also accompanied Charlotte (the Guernsey and Herm oyster farm lady who you will have heard of in here before) on a boat viewing. She and her partner are contemplating a real "project boat" that is, spookily, up for sale in Brighton with Blackrock Yachting. That company is owned by a friend. Small world indeed. Here is the project craft:

http://www.blackrockyachting.co.uk/boats_for_sale/Trafalgar_70-16254.html/

and as you can see she is substantial:

Loads of work needed but she could be turned into quite a craft.

Storm Ciara added a little bit of fun too. The force 9 gale with Force 10 gusts made for a lovely Sunday:

On the Windy website you don't want to see purple colours in the wind strength or wave height. This image shows the wind on Sunday morning. Not nice.

During the removal of the original kitchen:

we escaped for a while.  First port of call was Beaulieu where we were treated to an unusual number of donkeys wandering about together (and grooming each other) for the wintertime:

Nine in total. We then hit Brockenhurst in the New Forest. Why? Well, a nice B and B there was offering a deal including a gin flight. How could one refuse?  It was Anne's idea originally but she had to bail out so Tina manfully stepped up to the challenge and joined us at the Thatched Cottage - have a look at their website. Why all the excitement? Well, they have a gin bar with a huge selection and a tasting flight was included in the room rate:

Included and enjoyed in fact. As was a Rick Stein charity lunch as part of a couple of days catching up with friends in Wadebridge. We then returned to the boat to check on the ravages of storm Ciara and to be around for storm Dennis. Ravages? Well, the old recovery sling thing had become detached from the rail. It has witnessed better days and so a replacement was already overdue. The boat itself was fine - Steve had added an extra fender and checked the lines for us whilst we were away so we knew that all was well.

Storm Dennis then added more fun:

with a red warning of flooding. We felt quite smug knowing that flooding was unlikely to do much more than raise the water level in the marina by a few inches. It did mean another weekend trapped on the boat though. The crew had managed to catch one of the many lurgies about right now, causing even more inactivity. For once the Fitbit addicted crew didn't care about her major step count deficiency this week.