Safely back from a week sailing in the Ionian Sea and, though this might disappoint and surprise you, there was barely one scary moment. Go me Cap’n Davey. A minor contretemps in Kioni harbour involving a Portugese gentleman who reacted furiously to being called selfish, but that was as near to a scrape as we got despite testing winds and some challenging anchoring conditions. Anyway traveling is very much on my mind as I sit down to get a few lines of blurb off my chest.
Lottie has just been on a canoeing and camping adventure in Central Sweden. Talking of scrapes, besides blistered hands, she revealed the most enormous bruise on her left arm although this, she explained, had nothing to do with canoeing. She fell, as she put it, “into a tree”. Yup. Bit weird. I think there is a story there and perhaps one day it will be revealed. Other than that, admittedly she was almost comatose on her return home on Wednesday evening, the only other thing this child genius of ours had to share with us was the fact that she slept the entire bus journey from Ed to Gothenberg save for about 30 seconds during which time she counted 15 consecutive Volvos driving alongside them.
Bob has gone travelling again. Slightly less esoteric. This time to join two friends of his on a boys trip for a long weekend in Amsterdam. That’s a worry, though not quite as concerning as what Hen is about to get up to.
I think I’ve mentioned Mowgli, her 17 year old Daihatsu van, before to you. Early next week she sets off in it, brake pads, suspension and rear lights replaced after its latest brush with the MOT officer, on a trip to Spain for how long we know not. Could be a while. Amongst other things she has a mission to help save a galgo which, in all seriousness, is a noble cause, though I am not sure how she and her Spanish greyhound will fit in her tiny vehicle. Over lunch at El Pastor yesterday, I was discussing my nervousness with Jimmy, who freshly graduated from Bristol, was in London for an internship interview. I mentioned to her that I had ordered a personal alarm and a can of pepper spray for Hen, just in case. But, and here is the joy of El Pastor where you can end up sitting cheek by jowl, a young couple was lunching at the table next to us and the guy leaned over to me to tell me that I really shouldn’t worry. A friend of his had gone to Spain in a van two years ago. She was having the most fantastic time, meeting wonderful people and had adopted a dog. So there you go. Sorted. I tripped home that evening very much the happier for this encounter and ran 4 miles at almost my pre-injury pace. ( By the way I was there again today and transpires that my friend Jon, the manager, was the very man who chucked chairs and glasses at the assailants that awful evening. Got to say I’m a wee bit in awe about that, but it is a terrific place. )
Talking of running I spotted an article about speed golf on the BBC website. What a cheek. I mean to say my brothers and I invented that game way back when only we called it “zulu-golf” because it involved running down the fairway in a particular gait which lessened the rattling of the clubs in the bag on your back. In Zulu warriors case these would have been spears of course. My record was an 81 ( holing out on every hole ) in 79 minutes around the New Course in St Andrews.
So back to the business in hand. The week before last I told you how I had miraculously snatched a pint-glass of Tiger out of mid-air. How ironic that whilst I was away on holiday drinking a lot of Mythos ( photo for you attached ) I missed an initiation on Tsingtao.
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