The Hamlin visitation

Mike and Mandie (TENGY) came to visit for a week, giving us a good excuse to buy in extra red wine and gin, and to go out for lots of pizza. We talked and talked, walked and walked, ate, drank, and walked and talked a bit more. We also bored Mike and Mandie with all of last season’s photos (currently about 1200) that we hadn’t been able to incorporate into the blog or inflict on anyone else. They were very diplomatic and didn’t yawn too obviously.

“Honestly Mike, it was this big.”

The Lotus Pizza Eaters by the Lion’s Gate.

We even got as far as catching the bus to Poetto beach, where we paddled, collected shells, lay on the sand in the sun – and talked a bit more.

Poetto beach.

Bryn was delighted to have Mike to play football with, and Mandie was delighted to have someone distracting Mike so that she didn’t have to play goalie.

Pizza played a large part in the week’s activities. We really couldn’t believe the size of the pizzas in Il Porcile (The Pigsty). The pizzas were as good as they looked – the house special even came topped with a fried egg.

Mike; “Don’t worry Bryn, I’ll help you out if you can’t finish it”.

Mandie went for the traditional – Sardinian-sausage-and-chip pizza (have you noticed how somebody always pinches a chip?).

Beth all dressed up and ready to eat pizza – again.

Mike taking advantage of the fact that Mandie was looking the other way to eat his pizza without a knife and fork.

Unfortunately she caught him, so it was best behaviour and a knife-and-fork-jobbie after that.

On the weather front

It is slowly dawning on us that the winter weather in the Med is not a patch on the Algarve, and we have been having some really sh***y stuff! We even had snow forecast here a couple of weekends ago (for the mountains). The only weather that materialized, however, was a Mistral (a steady 30 knots with gusts over 50 knots) for about 3 days. The pontoon was undulating up and down and we were confined to the boat for a few hours (too dangerous to get on and off as the pontoon and passarelle were going in very different directions). Quite a few boats were damaged by ramming into the pontoons, and one whose genoa unravelled nearly lost its mast. A boat in the boatyard next door was blown over; luckily no-one was hurt.

Somebody’s pride and joy bites the dust concrete.

After the Mistral had finished we had 24 hours off, and were then straight into a 2-day Sirocco from behind with a steady 25 kts and frequent gusts over 40 kts. At one point we had waves breaking over the stern and slopping into the cockpit. That didn't bother us, of course, as we are used to Aberystwyth in winter and at least it is (relatively) warm here. As the wind shifted direction, we took on a steady 10º heel to starboard. We didn't actually resort to lee cloths, but it did cross my mind that they might be a good idea as I lay, half asleep, in the gap between the mattresses, jammed against David's back, unable to roll uphill away from him…

After that, we had rain by the bucketful – only because we had just done a load of washing and had nowhere to dry it. It smelled lovely – damp knickers (clean, I might add) draped everywhere to dry and a fan heater blowing (why do old fan heaters always smell of burning dust, even if you hoover them regularly?)! It was a surreal contrast to lying on Poetto beach in the sun with Mike and Mandie the week before.

Having read the pilot books and guide books a little more closely, it turns out that this is typical of the winter weather in the Med, although it is usually settled until the end of October. However, we have invested in a little oil-filled radiator that is keeping us toasty (and it doesn’t smell). We do get some lovely sunny mornings when I force everyone outside into the sunshine in numerous layers to get a bit of fresh air with breakfast (I have a blanket over my knees if necessary).

Culinary adventures

The children went off to WANDERING DRAGON for more Excel, The Return of the Pink Panther, and high-pressure action in the galley. Their IT homework had been to design the menu for the one-night opening of the WANDERING DRAGON Pizza Emporium. We joined them, along with Karen and Richard (PYXIS) to sample the results – which were superb. Bryn even perfected cheese-stuffed pizza crusts!

The kitchen of the WANDERING DRAGON Pizza Emporium. “Who said they wanted their crust stuffing?”

Me tucking into the ‘Crazy Cheese’ pizza.

Richard sampling the ‘Yoyo Special’ pizza – tuna with extra tuna (Yoyo is a cat).

Fudge to follow.

With-or-without-carrot cake

The next culinary adventure was again on WANDERING DRAGON, this time for carrot cake – the with-carrot version. The distinction is important apparently, as WANDERING DRAGON have been known to turn out a version of carrot-less carrot cake (if you get my drift).

The carrot-laden carrot cake. Please note the ‘posh’ forks.

The mundane stuff of life

Apart from the frisson of excitement that accompanies the run up to Christmas on a boat with two kids, life trundles on with school, work and stuff, and research about where we want to go next season (I have been researching the Greek Islands). Internet access is now sorted here in Italy (35 Euros for 400 hours in 1 month, broadband), although I am now starting to worry about internet access in the Greek Islands... School is going really well. I am finding organizing school tasks a lot easier this winter, and I feel much more confident that the children are getting a good deal.

Minding your Ps and Qs (and S and T waves)

Bethany had to have an ECG before she was allowed to go to her swimming classes (a little quirk of the Italian system, apparently), which was (from the eager homeschooling mum’s perspective) a perfect mini-project for school. We studied the anatomy of the heart and lungs (to degree level of course), and we roped in Gary (WILD OATS, former Training Officer for Cleveland Ambulance) to explain the meaning of the squiggles of the ECG trace. The follow-up session was meant to be dissection of a pig’s heart, but as I had a load of chicken hearts (that came with some chicken livers that I used for chicken liver with Cointreau pâté) we dissected those instead. They were a little fiddly, but we found a few heart valves (using the magnifying glass we keep for deciphering small symbols on charts)...

The guitar lessons are continuing. Bryn spent all his hard-saved birthday and pocket money to buy himself a full-size guitar. David has traded in his electric guitar and amp for an acoustic, and Bethany has inherited Bryn’s 3/4-size guitar. So we now have three acoustic guitars on board (and we wonder why we don't have any room!). We are tuning up for Christmas – the children are working on chords for carols ('Sailing' by Rod Steward could pass for a carol at a push, couldn’t it? All the carols contain chords that we haven’t learned yet).

The Capettes – CAPE’s answer to the Carpenters.

The arty bit at the end

Not long to wait ‘til sunset!

Just for a change – a photo of someone else’s photos of lighthouses…