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.