Simon was up and away first thing this morning for more lectures together with added exercise when he arrived an hour early and had to come back for a while. This morning was just a reminder from the March lectures on power management and SSB radio. With now only a week to go I was busy below and didn’t even surface from the boat until midday. What a sight greeted me. Most of the boats are now dressed with code flags as requested and in glorious sunshine and a steady breeze they fluttered in all directions. I spent the morning sorting out our stores list and meat order then got on the internet to upload more blog and chatted to my mum and sister Julie on Skype. It was such a bad connection I gave up after a while and think I shall have to go to the Sailor’s bar to ensure a chat with my babies before we go.

   It was mid afternoon before I got to El Corte Inglés first to buy fabric glue to finish Si’s costume and secondly to order the meat and buy even more provisions. It feels like food shopping for Christmas where often I would be so focused on the big event I would forget about now. Luckily today I remembered to buy food for the weekend and loading the Brommy up I wobbled back to the marina.

   Another day had disappeared at the speed of light and we only had time for a quick salad before scrubbing up for the cocktail party. This was rather dull after last night’s wonderful extravaganza and with the ‘free alcohol predators’ pouncing on the waiters as soon as they appeared it was actually quite hard to get a drink. Probably just as well for the ones I sampled made me quite dizzy. We both had trouble getting off to sleep and had a very disturbed night.