Back!

We came back yesterday. The day had started very foggy in St Albans, and the fields alongside the M1 were variably swathed by the stuff all the way up. We arrived at the marina as the sun was beginning to appear, and the afternoon and evening were gloriously springy.

We offloaded all the stuff we'd brought, dewinterised the boat, cleaned right through - it was surprising how much light mould had developed over the past three months, which we've not had previous years - and packed the stuff into drawers and cupboards. The Alde stove didn't work when we switched on the pump - very odd, since it was working the day we left Kantara back in December - so we lit the Bubble stove, which smoked profusely, filling the cabin with diesel fumes. The chimney wasn't blocked, and all was fine when I relit it fifteen to twenty minutes later. I can only imagine the chimney couldn't "draw" because it was cold and damp. After a quick meal and a bit of telly, we went to bed feeling quite exhausted.

Our unexpectedly early return to St Albans on Monday afternoon coincided, as I said in my last post, with Said the Maiden's invitation to support Clannad in their appearance at St Albans Arena. Grace, Steve and I got tickets to attend. It was a wonderful gig. The Maidens performed superbly to an audience of almost 800, and Clannad - I'm not a great fan - were well worth hearing (now 40 years on from the start of their career). Said the Maiden attracted a lot of attention, sold lots of CDs, and lots of new followers joined their mailing list. It was a brilliant evening.

Clannad & Said the Maiden

It was foggy again this morning, after our first night on Kantara for thirteen weeks. I couldn't see one end of the boat from the other end! But the weather's really beautiful again now, mild and sunny. And we have a number of little settling-in jobs to do!