Eastbourne, large Nordhavns and the Xmas thing

As the crew's back was still pesky, a trip to Hythe took two days but was pretty pain free. Progress indeed. The captain then headed over to Eastbourne to join Alex and Gisele on their (we may have said this before) HUGE Nordhavn 55. To use an old song line "the weather outside is frightful" but all was good inside as you can see from the picture:

Alex and the captain had a few fun jobs to do - overhauling the old Jabsco bilge pump and sorting out a very slow to empty grey water tank. The first one went well. The second was one of those "fix one thing, find another" jobs.  A slightly leaky anti-siphon fitting was easy to fix. A new electric pump was fitted with a new joiner hose to replace one that was pretty bent about. Then the manual pump was a bit leaky and possibly having joker valve issues so stripping it down and resealing it in situ  was amusing. For all the wrong reasons. Suffice to say that it eventually came out totally, to be sorted on a bench instead. The tank senders were seriously grubby and jammed so they came out and got cleaned up too. For some inexplicable reason, a fuse popped and had to be replaced as well. The job wasn't finished so will be returned to another day.

Xmas was back afloat, but we were invited to a Czech dinner on the 24th as last year. It started strangely, Moxie, their fox red labrador, managed to bash her tail against all the doors, walls and furniture causing the tip to bleed. The continually wagging tail then sprayed the blood around rather dramatically over the walls, furniture etc. She looks so peaceful here, with her new Xmas present from us,  but earlier on it was quite a drama:

The Czech tradition of seeing the first star, then hunting for the golden pig was observed and once Nikki found the important animal:

a rather excellent dinner followed on. Happy times.

Xmas day was quiet - we felt the need to open some Camel Valley rose fizz to celebrate it though:

and although Patrick didn't get any, he still managed to look slightly the worse for wear:

It must just be an age thing for the poor guy.

Between Xmas and New Year we had an Aussie invasion. Ross ( he starred in here a few years ago on his last visit) and his fiancee Lucy came to stay. Only it was not the easiest trip for them. Train strikes over Xmas messed up the train they had booked to London and the weather then decided to add to their amusement. We collected two drowned rats from Cardiff station and thawed them out on the boat, helping their inner warmth with more Camel Valley stuff. It did finally dry up a little so Ross could venture onto the flybridge:

suitably attired in our wet weather gear. Lucy seemed to take to life afloat rather quickly and very well:

and was most interested in some of the strange beers that are on offer in the UK. Watermelon IPA was a hit:

and just for the record, Lucy is lovely, not at all an evil genius.

The IPA was not good for poor Ross though, who is a bit gluten intolerant now. Luckily we'd picked up lots of tips from Gisele on what to buy and so he didn't starve. It might have been a close run thing when he stayed with his grandma though as her man kept telling folks that Ross was "vegan free". No idea what that would let him eat. A walk around Penarth (in heavy showers of course) then a trip to Castell Coch to get some "culture and heritage" (and also to get out of the rain) occupied a day:

before we dropped them off at the station again for their trip up to Glasgow:

The boat felt very empty after they left, although the gin cupboard was better stocked thanks to a couple of nice bottles they brought. So much for the Xmas period.