Solent Sailing

Ron's friends Ian and Lyn invited us to go sailing with them on their yacht E'le May in mid September. The pressure was on to come up with some decent weather and to our considerable relief, the weather gods played along. We sailed from Hornet sailing club in Gosport on Saturday morning and had a wonderful trip up the Solent to Newtown Creek on the Isle of Wight where we dropped anchor and had lunch. After lunch, we headed off across the Solent to the Beaulieu river entrance and then up river to Buckler's Hard where we moored up for the night.

On Sunday morning we set off back down the Solent with a very brisk wind on the starboard quarter and enjoyed another wonderful sail back to Gosport. Anyone who sails in the Solent regularly will understand how great it was not to have to sail the whole time against the wind!!

Yet more Grand Tour

We headed off to Lincolnshire (via Tim's Mum's house for tea and cake) where we had a picnic date with John and Sylvia, friends of Ron at Tolethorpe Hall followed by outdoor Shakespeare, a lovely production of Much Ado About Nothing. Thankfully it stayed dry (almost) but I was very glad of Ron's coat across my knees! We stayed the night at The Willoughby Arms in Little Bytham and the following morning set off to explore Stamford (some great retail therapy for both of us) before heading off to John and Sylvia's house near Ely.

Their house is lovely, the garden is even lovelier full of fruit trees (including a fig tree that produces the most delectable fruit) and a considerable number of tomato plants not to mention the chickens (who seem to enjoy the fig skins as much as we enjoyed the fig insides!). We had a rather damp afternoon in Cambridge, were delighted to find Serrano ham in the market (perfect with ripe figs!) and then spent a while at the Fitzwilliam museum. The highlight of our stay with John and Sylvia was a day out at Newmarket races which included travelling there in a gold Rolls Royce and picnicing in the car park before the racing got underway. We didn't quite lose our shirts on the horses, in fact Ron enjoyed himself so much he's determined to go again before he goes back to St Lucia.

Our final weekend away was based in Guildford where we had dinner with my friend Claire and her husband Doug. Sunday was Cricket Day, a train journey to London and a day out at Lord's. Sadly, we were there the day after The News of the World's revelations about match fixing so the atmosphere was rather subdued and the test match was all over in an hour and a half. We didn't even get to see the prize giving as it was held behind closed doors. On the plus side, lunch was fabulous: some of Sylvia's wonderful figs with Serrano ham from the lovely Spanish chap in Cambridge market all washed down with a bottle of Crabbies (thanks, Kate, for introducing us to it!).

We returned to Hamble on Bank Holiday Monday and Dee has been busy getting up to speed at work. Ron has spent the week in Topsham seeing old friends and sorting "stuff" (I believe curry and golf has also featured....!).