We managed to find the Christmas decorations and lights in the black hole under Bryn’s bunk. Beth and Bryn busied themselves with school Christmas parties and making origami penguin Christmas cards (with googly eyes) to distribute to their friends and around the marina.

The CAPE Christmas penguin colony.

Christmas Eve

The plan was for the blokes to put on an International Buffet on Christmas Eve. Bryn busied himself making Welsh cakes and David got stuck in with chicken liver pâté with Cointreau and orange. Bethany and I got dressed up and retired to TASMAN for drinks with the girlies while the Club room was decorated and the food laid out.

Bryn making Welsh cakes.

David potting up his pâté.

Bethany getting ready to party.

The Club house looked stunning when we walked in with subtle lighting, festive music and an amazing range of food including marinated salmon, onion bahjees, curry, scouse, stuffed chicken roll, chicken satay, coquille St Jacques, fruit tartlets, berry compote with vanilla sauce, and of course, pâté, and Welsh cakes. The subtle lighting included tiny oil lamps made of satsuma halves with the segments removed, but with the central pith stem left as a wick!

Fantastic food and subtle lighting.

The blokes (...who let Bryn have a bottle of beer?).

After the food, we partied on until we got to the Conga stage of the evening...

The Conga stage of the evening.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day kicked off early when Bethany got Bryn up at 06:00 (and then again at 07:00). At 08:00 we gave in and had a pressie opening session on our bed over a cup of tea. Breakfast was the traditional chocolates with Bucks Fizz, followed by Christmas cricket. David was captain of one team, Colin (TASMAN) was captain of the other, and Andy (GRAND SLAM) was umpire. I took the distinguished honour of the only person to hit the ball in the water, but luckily Christian and Evelyn (TRIBAL KAT) had a handy scoop device (margarine tub wired onto a boat hook) for fishing for cricket balls, so play wasn’t stopped for long. Colin’s team won (sorry, can’t remember the score...is it important?).

Retrieving the ball from the water.

Christmas Day cricket.

The women were in charge of lunch, which started at 4 pm. 23 of us sat down to Waldorf salad and fish terrine for starters, roast turkey and lamb with every imaginable trimming for the main course, followed by Christmas pud, other puds, mince pies, cheese, fruit, port... We even managed to track down sprouts – apparently shipped in by Lidl as a ‘foreign’ Christmas specialty vegetable, as we hadn’t seen them before Christmas week – and we haven’t seen them since! We were on turkey, chestnut sauce and chocolate pudding duty (never let on that you have a large boat oven).

Christmas lunch.

After lunch, Russ (AQUA DOMUS) played Santa and – with his little helper, Bryn – distributed Secret Santa presents to everyone.

Russ getting into the swing of playing Santa.

Boxing Day

Boxing Day was shorts and T-shirt weather – perfect for messing about in boats.

Defensive tactics in the canoe racing.

Dinghy sailing.

Later on we gathered in the Club house for leftovers and silly games.

New Year

New Year’s Eve was another sunny day and we picnicked on the pontoon before a siesta.

Special Greek ‘New Year’ bread.

Picnicking on the pontoon.

In the evening we gathered at about 9 pm for a bit of a jam and dancing, and a BBQ before seeing the New Year in – not just once, but three times:

·         at 00:00 Greek time (22:00 UK time, toasted with ouzo)

·         at 00:00 French time (01:00 Greek time, toasted with French champagne)

·         at 00:00 UK time (02:00 Greek time, toasted with whiskey).

And a long lie in on Jan 1!

A bit more music.

Hilary and Beth doing ‘YMCA’ up the stairs.

Why do men always gather around a BBQ?

Since New Year

We’ve been watching the snowy and icy winter weather in the UK and hope that you all survived and that nothing important dropped off due to frostbite. While we haven’t had any of the UK weather here in Messolonghi, the mountains around us are definitely dusted with snow and the weather has been really cold, wet and windy since New Year’s Eve. Honest! We’ve had night-time temperatures of about 5°C – although no freezing temperatures down here at sea level – yet. I know your hearts are bleeding for us, but we just aren’t used to cold anymore! We went for a bracing bike ride to the beach at Tourlida to blow the cobwebs away – it was just like January in Aber!

With the bikes at Tourlida.

Beth caught a little geko – he was so cold he couldn’t move when she tried to put him back onto the grass.

January 6 is big here in Greece, and is officially when people give presents (to coincide with the coming of the Wise Men with their gifts after the birth of Jesus). There was a church service, then a procession through the town with a marching band and soldiers, followed by the church elders chucking a cross into the harbour. 'Young men' then have to leap in the tide to retrieve the cross. Poor sods, they were standing there in just their swimming trunks when we arrived at about 10:45, and the cross didn't get thrown until about 11:30!

Freezing ‘young men’ waiting for the procession to arrive.

The arrival of the priests and the procession.

Diving for the cross.

Back to work and school

We came back to normal with a bump when the children went back to school on January 8. David (with half the blokes in the marina helping) tried to get the repaired fuel tank back into position in the engine room. It was very tight getting it out but at least they could crowbar against the bulkhead. Going back in there are only delicate bits of the engine to crowbar against and it just wasn’t going to go (three failed attempts, each taking about 4 hours). The fuel tank went off to have the top 6 inches taken off and the top welded back on. Why are these jobs never simple?

I flew to Paris to attend a meeting for work. It sounds glamorous I know, but I flew out Friday, worked all day Saturday and Sunday, and flew back Monday, seeing Paris from the taxi to and from the airport and only leaving the hotel for dinner in the evenings. OK, so it was a really nice hotel with a view of the Eiffel Tower, and the food was fab, and the people were great fun... and I had a BATH!!!! Baths are things that we liveaboards don’t come across very often – the last bath I had was when we stayed with the Liddy Gang in Llandrillo when we visited the UK in February 2008. (I must point out that I have showered in between...) David had arranged for the children to go to Hilary and Paul (PAX NOSTRUM) for lunch after school, and Caryn and Svein (C’EST LA VIE) for tea so that he could pick me up from the airport. On the way back we had a call from Caryn to warn us that Bryn had fallen and broken his front teeth. We got back to find that he’d managed to snap one clean in half and take a large chip out of the other. Poor Caryn and Svein were mortified that it had happened while they were in charge! (Never get roped into looking after other people’s pets or kids...) Luckily the dentist here was able to patch up the chip and put a temporary crown on the other, but he'll need permanent crowns on both eventually. Don’t worry, he still has his cheeky grin!