The Deed is Done

Current Location: Ebley, Gloucestershire: tomorrow Deganwy, North Wales

On Monday 30th July two momentous events occured. Firstly we paid for Mehalah and secondly my PSA reading was found to be 0.1, or basically undetectable. For a prostate cancer sufferer such as myself this is GOOD NEWS. It means the cancer no longer has much of a foothold and just might be on its way out. A great day all round!

Anyway, the following day we arrived in Deganwy in the early afternoon to find Jackie waiting for us in the Club House of the marina. Bills of Sale were signed, the waiting life raft was loaded into a trolley and we made our way down the steep slipway (tides here remember!) and onto Mehalah. She is indeed a lovely boat. But....we couldn't get aboard. The key was nowhere to be seen. A quick call to Jackie revealed it was stored in the yellow rubber glove in the cockpit. Of course. Why didn't we look there?

Now we had to lug all the stuff from the car, down the slope and aboard. This took a while and in the end it was near impossible to step around inside the boat. "Where will it all go?" I asked. Never fear, Gilly's here; and the impossible task commenced. By the following morning everything was stowed and there was even spare space for more. That's a good job because more there, is due to arrive with us tomorrow and then with Harry & Sandra later in the month.

Jackie had taken a few things we had expected to be left but this was mostly not a problem. We did though ask her for the anchoring ball and motoring cone back...which duly arrived.

It's a pretty area up around Conwy and we found time for my daily three mile walks each evening. We heard very little Welsh but plenty of Scouse. The next day was spent identifying and double clipping the sea cock hoses as required by the insurance company and other interesting boatie tasks.

The next morning it was back to Ebley to drop off the car and to see my consultant. Unfortunately he is moving to the UAE so he wasn't there. A stand in lady told me what we already knew. It's good news and "all the treatment they have given me has paid off". That's all well and good but maybe the lifestyle changes have made a difference too. But talking about that usually gets us nowhere, so I didn't.

And now it's the evening before we return to Deganwy this time with Dick and Mary our friends from the Caribbean, now returned for summer in the UK in Plymouth. The hire car is booked [will it be big enough??] and we'll be off.

Departure from the marina is planned for early on the morning of 7th with a passage down to Cornwall over the next few days. The forecast has been great - north westeries and westerlies but tonight it is looking considerably less good with stronger south westerlies and even southerlies creeping in later in the week. We shall see. Maybe it'll end up with a big tack over to Ireland and then back to the south west.