What a whirlwind! There was so much to do and so many people to see.
The weather was kind to me when I first arrived although I still felt cold. We had some beautiful sunsets too – not quite Caribbean style but lovely just the same!
I spent the first weekend with Victoria who luckily had a long weekend off. I introduced her to the Pandoro/Troll bracelet idea which she embraced wholeheartedly. By the time I left, she (well I really – birthday and Christmas and all that) had nearly completed one bracelet. Because she liked the coloured beads so much she has gone for the Trollbeads as they have more of a selection.
A week after I arrived, Mike came back. Poor Mike. His whole visit was taken up by paperwork. While he was doing this I managed to get and see some of my friends; Jan, Helene and Jane.
Mike’s parents arrived for a three day visit but because the apartment is so small they had to stay in a nearby hotel and Mike picked them up in the mornings and took them back when it was time for bed. We had to leave them for doctor and dentist appointments, all of which had to be squeezed in to a small time frame.
After they left, Mike, Victoria and myself went to our favourite restaurant, the Venture In. This is the scene of all our celebrations – exam results, birthdays and anniversaries, and any other excuse we can find to visit. The food never disappoints.
As Victoria was working the entire next weekend, we went to stay with Johanne and Steve but again, Mike took his laptop and surrounded himself with paperwork while we were there. Johanne and I would normally have gone shopping but by this time both Mike and I were in the throes of really nasty colds and Johanne wasn’t feeling too good either so we didn’t bother. She went to a lot of trouble cooking us a full, traditional Christmas lunch on the Sunday, as she knew we wouldn’t be able to have one on the boat, even providing Mike with a Christmas pudding. He was in his element especially as she gave him all the left over pudding to take home. What a little treasure she is!
On 21 October Mike flew back to Grenada. I was supposed to follow the following week but with an ever mounting pile of things to organise and people to see, I put my flight back.
I had a much needed haircut and colour then met my friend Emma for lunch. The next evening I went to a Bevington Bash, a sort of ‘meet the neighbours’ thing which did actually give me the chance to see some of the people who live around me that I haven’t met before. Being in the throes of cold number 2 and feeling pretty grotty I didn’t intend staying long but ended up being one of the last to leave. Amazing what a few glasses of wine can do!
I met my friend Helene for lunch the next day and then Johanne arrived in the late afternoon. I cooked us a lovely meal of spiced braised lamb shanks but failed to notice that the chillies I used were the hottest variety you can find. They weren’t the bird’s eye ones or scotch bonnets. Instead they were something innocuous sounding – Dorset Nagi or something. They sounded British (Dorset?) so I assumed they would be mild. I failed to notice the picture of the six chillies on the packet as I didn’t have my glasses on when I went shopping!! Anyway, we ended up having to scrape the sauce off as it was far too hot to eat and I had to make a caramelised onion gravy to go with it instead!
The next day, October 25, was Victoria’s 25th birthday.
I presented her with her Troll bracelet which she loved. She went off to spend the day with friends while Johanne and I walked into Worcester for a spot of shopping.
The following week I went off for the whole week. I drove to Cheshunt to see my brother, Tony, first. It was lovely to see him and Maureen looking so well and the icing on the cake was a visit from Tracy, his daughter, who is lovely company.
From there I went to stay with friends John and Allison who holidayed with us in July. Allison, a brilliant cook, racked her brains to think of things that I wouldn’t easily be able to cook on the boat and delighted me with a full roast lamb dinner. Yummy.
Allison and I spent the next day together, having a girly lunch and she took me to a hairdressing supplies shop to get some of the things I would need to do my own hair for 18 months – God forbid! I was so confused as to what to buy I just purchased a pair of scissors. I needed to talk to my hairdresser before I started buying anything else.
From there I went to my sister’s in Hethersett. Ann and I had a lovely time with visits to her children and grandchildren. We also had a fantastic evening at Viv and David’s who came out with them in August to the boat. Viv cooked the most amazing meal – she had started it the day before and it was out of this world. Viv also knows how to set a table and had lit about 80 candles. The sight was spectacular. Thank you, Viv.
We went back there the next day as Viv and David were going off to collect their new puppy, a Labradoodle that they named Truffle. Truffle was absolutely adorable. I want one!
Photo: Truffle looking rather more like a cuddly toy than a dog!
That evening my nephews, Matt and Jim, came over for a meal with all but one of the grandchildren. It was mayhem but in an orderly fashion. They were adorable.
Photo: Great niece Lilly having a photographic strop
I went back home on the Friday afternoon and that evening went out for dinner with my old boss, Liz Taylor, her husband and another ex-colleague, Elaine and her husband. Had a great time. Liz’s husband, Alan, gave me a Sooty hand puppet with instructions to photograph it regularly on our world trip.
The following day I went for a lovely walk along the banks of the River Severn which our apartment overlooks. It was a beautiful day.
In the evening I went over to Jane and Michael’s for dinner and had a lovely evening.
The next day I drove to Johanne and Steve’s, just for a whirlwind 24-hour visit. The first half the following week was taken up by visits to the doctor, dentist and having an assortment of nasty jabs ready for the World ARC. I felt like a pin cushion by the end of it! On the Thursday evening I took the train down to London to visit my friend Laura. She had quite a few things lined up for us including a visit to London’s only remaining music hall where we watched some old Pathe News films bringing back vivid memories of our childhoods and youth. On the Saturday, Laura had to work so I met my niece, Alice, who is at university at UCL. We had a lovely day mouching around the shops around Spitalfields and Brick Lane and a lovely lunch at Storey. In the evening we met with some of Laura’s friends for a meal at a restaurant overlooking the Victoria Park firework display.
Hangovers the next day necessitated lounging around in bed for most of it, and Laura’s bad back had us doing the same thing the following day but I’m sure the rest did us both good.
I returned to Worcester on the Tuesday, had my Yellow Fever jab, then went for a very boozy lunch with Kim, so boozy in fact that I didn’t leave until late in the evening when it was safe for me to drive again.
The following weekend saw me back in Appleton with Johanne and Steve, going to see Mike’s parents on the way there. We had a lovely dinner on the Saturday night with some friends of theirs, Mike and Linda and Johanne’s cooking was up to its usual standard.
Photo: Johanne and I, dressed up and ready for dinner
Back in Worcester, I had a visit from Sue who used to work with me at the college in Bromsgrove then in the late afternoon I drove to meet Ali and Jan with whom I used to go to yoga. Jan had just produced her first baby, Hayden, who was lovely and looked very tiny to me although he was nearly twice the size Victoria was when she was born. I joined Ali for supper after to catch up on all her news.
The following evening I went over to Solihull to join Emma and Andrew for dinner. We had a lovely meal at the Malt Shovel in Barston and Emma forced me to drink copious amounts of champagne and wine. Yeah, right! Like I need forcing! Luckily they had organised a taxi back to theirs and I stayed the night.
On the way home I called in to see Jan and Chris again before heading home ready for yet another meal out, this time with some of the trainers I used to work with at the NHS; Denise, Helene and Vanessa. Unfortunately they had left it to me to book the table and I forgot until about 4pm so the next hour was spent frantically phoning around to find somewhere. Helene came to the rescue and found one though and we had a good old gossip and laugh.
Around half an hour after I got back home, my sister Ann and her husband Terry arrived. With there not being much room in the flat, I gave up my bedroom and slept in the lounge.
We had a late breakfast then wandered into Worcester, intending to do a bit of shopping. We tried to walk along the river but discovered that it had just started to burst its banks on our side and we could only go half way, so we walked back and took the canal side route instead. Terry offered to buy a quick snack so we went into The Glasshouse just for a starter and a glass of wine. Four and a half hours later, after a very enjoyable time, we left and flew around the shops before they closed. Terry bought Ann some very nice presents. If you don’t end up using them, Ann, throw them my way!
Photo: Terry and the two sisters
The next day I met my old buddy and ex-colleague, Dave, for lunch. We exchanged news and had a good old chat. It was lovely to see him. I walked over to the river bank and saw that the flooding was now much closer, and even the canal had flooded.
The next week saw another visit to the hairdressers where I received a brutally short haircut and instructions on what stuff to buy to do my own hair, followed by a visit to Jane for reassurance that I didn’t look like a boy. She said I didn’t but I wasn’t convinced - this was boat hair with a vengeance!
The next day was spent organising paperwork and looking dejectedly at the mounting pile of stuff that I was accumulating to take back to the boat – most of it heavy. I went out to photograph the river which had now well and truly burst its banks on both sides and flowing in a torrent in the direction of the sea.
I met another friend in the evening for yet another goodbye. The next day I woke with the headache from hell which no amount of medication would touch. I stayed in bed until after noon having taken a whole cocktail of stuff to no avail, but I had to drive up to Mike’s parents to leave my car and say goodbye. By the time I arrived I was so stressed that I burst into tears, which didn’t help them a whole lot as they were already upset about us going.
Steve came to pick me up and I spent the night at his and Johanne’s. There were more tears saying goodbye to Steve and Isabella in the morning before Johanne drove me back to Worcester. We were determined that we would NOT spend the weekend in tears and managed this pretty well to start with. We walked into Worcester where the Christmas market was in full swing and did a spot of shopping. We found some amazing bargains in Felice, and Johanne took full advantage of them. On the way back we stopped for a drink or two at The Glasshouse, the scene of last week’s revelry with Ann and Terry. We had great fun and a lovely couple gave us their Moet and Chandon celebration balls (little gold balls which have charms, candles or offers of free champagne in them which sit in the top of your champagne glass).
This spurred Johanne to talk another one out of our waiter even though we weren’t drinking champagne, just a rather nice Sauvignon Blanc. Anyway, we had such a nice time that we booked a table for the next evening – the last supper!!
The next day we went back into Worcester and I found a few bargains in TK Maxx, more suited to my new lifestyle. We had a lovely meal at The Glasshouse and managed to talk two more Moet balls from our rather delicious waiter, Sam. I had decided that it would be a nice idea if we each wrote a note to the other which we would open just before I got on the plane.
The next day was cold, miserable and very wet. We decided that if we stayed in we would also be miserable so we went for a sightseeing trip to Great Malvern. The weather didn’t improve our mood and most of the shops were shut although Johanne, ever on the lookout for good food, managed to buy a boot full of stuff from Waitrose. That’s my girl!
We wrote our notes when we got back, ate dinner and said our tearful goodbyes. Trying to say goodbye like we would see each other in six weeks just didn’t work. Victoria had the difficult job of trying to comfort me after she had gone. Sigh.
The next morning, Victoria’s friend, Becky, took me to buy all my hair stuff. Scissors, bleach, hair dyes in a variety of colours that I get to mix, and even worse, that Mike gets to apply to me. Heaven knows what I will look like. Shaving it off might be a better option! By the evening I had managed to get most of the stuff in my sailing bag but lifting it was a problem. I could drag it along on its wheels but getting it down the stairs and onto trains was going to be a problem. Luckily my visit to the site office to say goodbye paid dividends as Sean, the site manager, said he would get me and my bag to the station the next day.
Victoria and I spent a girly night in and when it came to say goodnight I was in floods of tears again. More tears followed in the morning, more from me than her. After 9 weeks of invading her space on and off, she was probably glad to see the back of me, although she does like her dinner being ready when she comes in from work and will miss that if nothing else. Only kidding, sweetie!
I tidied the flat up in the morning and bang on time Sean came to take me to the station. He even lugged my case up the stairs, over the track and down again to the far platform. After that the struggle was all mine, and it was a bloody struggle. Luckily the rain kept off and it was warmer than it had been of late so I didn’t have to bundle up with clothes I wouldn’t need for ages.
I changed trains at Reading and whilst waiting for the train to Gatwick, a fellow female traveller dumped soft bags next to me. She had three to my two, and I offered to guard one for her while she dragged two of hers onto the train, then she helped me with mine. We got talking. We introduced ourselves. Amazingly, Gabbie was also going out to the Caribbean to start a round the world sailing trip on her yacht in January, although she and her husband are doing it as part of the Blue Water Rally rather than the World ARC. Hopefully, our paths will cross as we visit the same places. The unbelievable thing is that there are only 22 boats competing in the Blue Water Rally and 36 in the World ARC and they are from all over the world. What are the odds of meeting another owner on a station platform in the UK? We have to meet up, Gabbie, if only to dye each other’s hair and drink wine together!!
After a long wait for the free transport to the hotel, I was finally installed in my bed with another mother of all headaches. I watched two hours of TV, took enough drugs to knock out a horse, put the alarm on and mercifully, fell asleep.
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