Here’s our home for the weekend. Very proud of the new flagpole, bit of an eBay drama, but well worth it. Campsite is excellent, everyone having a great time with the odd firework despite them being banned! Dinner went down well, now on the French cheese! #BelgianGP
Just arrived at the track, pitched up (photo to come…) and dashed over to do our covid tests. Stopped at the Carrefour on the way to top up on food and beer €320! Just having a quick beer before we head back and get some dinner on the go. Many, many Max fans!!
Bonjour France!! 🇫🇷 Smooth sail on what felt like a quieter than usual P&O ferry. 1L of Tanqueray for £13 in duty free 🕺😵💫 Now buckled up for three or so hours on the E40. Those not driving are on the road beers 😝 🍻 #BelgianGP
Well, this is a life-first, a passport stamp for France. Process was same as before with the addition of some ink and scanning of the NHS Vaccine pass on my phone. Waiting to board! 🛳
Morning! On the road to Dover, destination: Spa! Making the most of my Peltors, forgot how noisy Campervans can be 😂 All good so far, just had an hours nap 😴 #BelgianGP
To put the size of these enormous gantry cranes into perspective, they literally have a crane on the crane 😳 They’re huge! Really quite a landmark.
Right, meetings all done, emails under control, it’s time to head home. Treated myself to J on the way back🥂 (but only because Y wasn’t available…) ☺️
Belgium tomorrow!!! 🇧🇪
Done. 🤗
Very easy! 2 minutes at a desk where I (voluntarily) explained my stupidity to the lady who agreed I was silly. Checked the new one, signed a form and they chopped a corner off the old one.
“You’ve come a long way!” “Yep. Serves me right, I won’t forget next time” 😂
It’s not quite the H&W selfie I pictured in my mind, but it’ll do. Quick bit of lunch, then passport, then back to HubFlow for some more calls. I’m at 9k steps so far 😂
Oh, they have 0% Guinness here!
Made it to Belfast. Quick bus trip to the city centre and now pitched up in HubFlow coworking space for the day. Weather outside is good and everyone seems nice and friendly. 👍😊 Took a quick walk around the botanical gardens this morning to get some fresh air.
Didn’t think I’d be getting on one of these this year. So far so good, very tired. First flight out of city airport. ✈️
Well, here we go! This is the earliest I’ve ever been to Strood Station before, that’s for sure. #viewfromtheplatform
Update on the passport situation. See you tomorrow, Belfast. 🤞
Today’s lesson: Check you passport and avoid a trip to Belfast.
Earlier in the year we drew the conclusion that 2021 wasn’t going to involve any international travel, the first year in probably a decade without getting on a plane. With Baby on the way, it’s all about hunkering down and getting ready. That was until we decided to have a boys trip to watch the Spa Grand Prix in Belgium.
No big deal I thought, I know the my passport expires in November. In the 10 years that I’ve owned my trusty (and now very worn passport) I’ve memorised the issue date, expiry date and number, which to be honest I take a bit of pride in. What I didn’t consider until last week is that with Brexit, my passport now needs to have 3 months left on the expiry for it to be valid (at least, when travelling to the EU). 🙄
Not realising this and with us planning to travel so soon was a bit of an issue and didn’t leave many options on the table. We’d already committed to the F1, paid for the tickets, etc so throwing that money away seemed a bit silly and getting a passport renewal normally takes weeks, so that wasn’t going to work either.
Luckily, there’s a special ‘same day’ passport service for idiots like me who don’t plan ahead. The catch is that you have to pay an idiot tax of £177 instead of the normal £75.50, AND you have to go to the passport office for an appointment to pick it up. Amazing! I thought, this is exactly what I need. The second catch was that ‘same day’ actually means ‘whenever and wherever you can get an appointment’. Luckily (again), there was one appointment left on the day before we’re supposed to travel, with the catch being that it’s in Belfast, Northern Ireland (which is probably why nobody else has booked that appointment).
That’s not exactly ideal, because literally anywhere in Great Britain would have been easier to get to than Northern Ireland. But it is what it is and so I hurriedly gave the government my money and pressed book, praying that my appointment at 2:30pm was still available. It was, thankfully.
Next challenge was figuring out the logistics of actually getting there. Basically the only way to get back in time was to take a flight, but these were all £200+ and really quite inconvenient. Luckily (again), there was BA reward flight availability from City Airport. leaving early-ish and getting back late-ish. Perfect! I can work remotely that day, from Belfast, pickup my shiny new passport and then head home. Booked! All for £1 and more Avios points than I care to think about. Only pain point is that I need to get up for the 4:47 train so I can be at city airport for 6am, but still, I used to do that all the time for flights.
A little bit of research has led me to a co-working space in the city, called HubFlow where I’ve booked a desk for £18 including free coffee. So I’ll hopefully head there, setup shop for the day and make the most of it all. Looks like a smart enough place and means I’m not a hypocrite when I hate on the people that sit in Pret for an entire day. Working means I don’t waste a day’s annual leave which I have been trying to save for when the baby arrives.
Plus! The airport lounge is open at George Best Airport and I’ve never been to Northern Ireland so I can cheekily tick it off the list.
Now I just have to pray to the travel gods that the house of cards that I’ve managed to build for myself doesn’t come tumbling down. Fingers crossed, it’ll all be fine. I shall report back.
It’s new gadget Tuesday! Giving the new Poly SY40-M a test drive. Fully Teams complaint with lots of bells and whistles. So far, so good, it’s a big step forward compared to my trusty Sennheiser saucer 😂
Off to Birmingham next week. £43 quid return leaving Euston a peak train. Can’t really argue with that. Can’t remember the last time I went north of London, but it was a long time ago!!
Next week is turning out to be a bit of a travel-fest. Bring it on!
Tent lights arrived! These are great, should just hang from the loops on the tarp and in the tent. £12 on Amazon for four, take three AAA batteries. Don’t look fully waterproof but there’s not really much to go wrong and the design should keep water out.
Sleeping quarters sorted for the Spa GP next week! Went with the OEX Bobcat I and Tarp from GoOutdoors. Paid £59 for the tent and £45 for the tarp. Really impressed so far, it’s a neat little setup, tent is tiny inside but that’s the nature of a one person tent 😂
The tarp gives a nice little sheltered space in the door area and you could quite comfortably leave the outer door open on the tent just using the inner section. Just enough space to get out of the rain and sit, even do some cooking or whatever.
Sleeping bag and mat fit nice and cosy inside the tent and there’s just about space to sit up inside which is ideal. No room at all for a bag or anything. Ordered some lights for night time to hang on the tarp which should look good.
Slept in the tent last night and everything seemed good, got a good sleep and actually enjoyed hearing the outside world from the back garden! Might start camping out more often!
Good luck to everyone presenting at Micro Camp! 🏕 Looking forward to joining some sessions 😊
Jab 2, done ✅💉
Had a fantastic time in Fowey last night, had some beers and dinner in the Fowey Gallants Sailing Club where we watched some mid-week dinghy sailing. Headed back to the boat for some wine until the sun set. Great day! 😁👍⛵️📸
Not having a terrible day! Passing Mevagissey to our port side in gorgeous sunshine. Not a breath of wind though so we’re motoring towards Fowey. ⛵️📸☀️😁
Morning again from Falmouth, good night last night. Got our passage and pilot planning sorted for the trip to Fowey. Should be a good day 👍📸🌅⛵️
We started the morning after sleeping aboard, not the best sleep ever but got just enough. We went through the workings of a life jacket after breakfast, explaining the mechanism and how the automatic firing works. We then spent some time talking about weather information and where it can be sourced, explaining the Almanac, etc. We covered Diesel engine daily maintenance and learned the WOBBLE mnemonic, water, oil, bilge, belt, lecky, exhaust.
I helmed the boat out of the Marina which went okay although the wheel was locked (whoops) which wasn’t ideal and it took me a little while to figure out! We got out fine though, nice and steady with no issue. We then did some mooring practice under power and got a feel for the boat.
Simon the instructor demonstrated how to use engine wash and walk to turn the boat in a close circle. A very neat trick. Every boat will pull to port or starboard in a certain way depending on the propeller type.
We then worked to put the sails up but had some issues with the cars in the mast track, which seemed to get stuck in the just below the top spreaders. We tried a few things to check what the cause could be, we disconnected the halyard and attached a line to make sure it could run free which it did. And then disconnected one of the cars from the sail to see if it was getting caught. We believed that the newly installed rolling Genoa may have resulted in the mast bending back more than before and the track being slightly pinched as a result.
We motored up the Fal river just before the chain ferry and anchored up for lunch. During lunch we oiled the cars of the sail and successfully pulled the main up.
We pulled the anchor up and motored out of the river a little before putting the sails up and doing some light weather sailing. We practiced identifying marks and talked about points of sail. In the mouth of the River we performed a heave-to manoeuvre to stop the boat while in the wind.
We sailed past the lighthouse at the mouth of the Falmouth and sailed back into the river. With the wind fading we furled the Genoa and motorsailed back to where we were for lunch.
Luckily we found a pontoon to moor up to for the night, I was given helm duty for coming alongside the pontoon which seemed to go quite well. We tied up and called it a day.
We had sausage and mash for dinner and spoke to a full-time sailor called Terry on a boat named the Josephine of Exe who had done some transatlantic crossings. Very interesting character who shared a few bottles of red!
Goodnight from the River Fal, after a great day sailing and learning skills. We went out to the mouth of the River Fal in nice calm winds and have moored up on a small pontoon upriver. Beautiful and peaceful. Few glasses of red with a wise old sailor telling us stories! ⛵️☀️😁📸
