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.

Germany calling......

The captain hadn't been back to Germany since finishing work with BMW Group in January 2013. That was not because he dislikes the place or the people in fact he really enjoyed both. It is just that not working seems to fill up the diary even more than before.

However, this omission was fixed by a whistle-stop trip to Frankfurt and Dusseldorf. Why those two and not Bavaria with the opportunity to say hi to the old work colleagues and practice the local "Bayerische" language that confuses and annoys in equal amounts? Well, some friends who we hadn't seen for over 20 years live just outside Frankfurt and having managed to make contact with them after losing all their contact details (they lost ours too.....) we had to go and say hello. For obvious reasons you have not met them in here before! Then there is the lure of the enormous Dusseldorf boat show too.....

For the benefit of Captain Rae, we flew over with his old employer in (to quote Capt Rae) a "poxy little frogbus". It seems that Colin did not enjoy his time in the short haul fleet on the Airbus 319/320.

Some time catching up with Debbie and Hajo and exploring the forest near their house was great. 20 years felt more like 20 weeks although the captain's wrinkles said otherwise. Hajo has a lovely classic car:

that is undergoing a little engine overhaul to prepare it for the next 48 years of its life:

To quote Bernie the old car collector extraordinaire, the timing chains look like they come from a Massey Ferguson combine harvester, not a car. The one part of a Stag engine that was over-engineered perhaps?

After a good walk in the forest, we took part in the German tradition of post exercise coffee and cake. Well, tea and cake in our case. Perhaps I should have taken a picture of Debbie's homemade treat a little earlier on though:

After Frankfurt, we took the Inter-City express train to Dusseldorf to meet up with Andrew and Linda (the Nordhavn 43 owners) and then to visit the boat show. Before you ask, we can confirm that we only bought food at the show, nothing else. Travelling through Germany at 284 kph rather made the local Cardiff services using antique Pacer trains that are nearly as old as Hajo's "classic" car seem a bit tame.

The show, called "Boot" (of course) at the massive exhibition centre was a test of stamina and shoe leather but great fun. We saw an ideal replacement for our RIB as a new tender:

A special boat show price of around 4,000 Euros was so tempting.Somehow we resisted it.

The trip finished off with a day wandering around the city and Altstadt area, taking Andrew and Linda to a typical German Brauhaus for a late lunch and then catching a cold (man flu of course) from her. That was less than ideal.