Tiffany and I were planning on a shopping expedition late morning... Raphael had found the supermarket yesterday and ascertained that they would deliver our shopping free of charge so the plan was for Tiffany and I to take their bikes at 11am (just in case they closed for the afternoon) after I had done a little school with the kids. In the end we all met at the marina mini-market/café at 11 to discuss weather. There were some thunderstorms forecast for Wednesday and we weren't sure if they would be done by the time we were due to leave so we decided to delay our departure another day and also our shopping trip. I had just about enough fresh food to see us by and the kind guy behind the counter refused to let me pay for his last onion!
I was a bit annoyed with myself that I had cut the kids school short only to not go shopping until I stopped and looked. All three kids were chilling out in the café and after an ice cream AJ could be seen buried in his kindle fire reading a book, and Esmé was learning about American History with Isabell.Tiffany also talked to us about the fact that Isabell loves writing books.... she has written a series of 8 which get ever more complex as she has grown up. The first is even available on Amazon here!
After a while we headed back to boats to prepare a picnic lunch and then met in the little wooded area again for more chill out time. We played my new favourite game "Rook" whilst Raphael did some work in the café, and then Tiffany and Isabell took care of AJ and E whilst Patrick and I attacked his CV for the first time in 22 years! It was looking like a long and traumatic process until the battery in my laptop died and gave us a reprieve.
On returning to the kids we were given a demonstration of their home made zipwire in the trees before we packed up and went back to Laurin for dinner.
It was still pretty hot and we had some tidying up to do so I bumbled about a bit, waiting a while before adding cooking heat to the already warm night. We heard a shout from outside and Patrick soon saw that it was Dave, another Cruising Association member he had been talking to the previous day. He single hands and had departed for Ragusa earlier that day, planning on hugging the coast and anchoring where he could overnight. He had been surprised at us delaying our departure waiting for better weather but he had come by to let us know it was a good call. He had got 18 miles out and the chop had been so bad he had turned round and come back. I handed him a beer and he and Patrick enjoyed a good chat whilst I tidied up and got on with dinner, a mishmash of sweet potato, bacon grill, onions, hallumi and baked beans. It was GREAT and everybody enjoyed it.
Wednesday 15th August
Another short school day and then I headed over to Wildest Dreams to borrow a bike, but not before an impromptu lesson on wild fires as we watched a helicopter repeatedly fly over us picking up water to dump on the fire that was raging ashore.
A quick but a little hair raising ride to the nearest Conad and it was a delight to be back in the land of sensible sized supermarkets, all be it with the usual lack of variety outside standard Italian fayre. One overloaded shopping trolley later, packed into the Conad guy's car and we were on our way back, with him following us on our bikes. It took well into the afternoon to stow everything before we could settle down for a late lunch. AJ and E then went over to Wildest Dreams while we continued with the dreaded CV and a couple of other housekeeping bits.
Eventually we headed over to join them where we enjoyed a game of Qwirkle dying daylight before heading back to Laurin for dinner. Tomorrow is departure day for the Messina straits. Planning to leave around 4:30pm after fuelling up and then sail overnight to allow us to traverse the Messina Straits in daylight before anchoring at Milazzo... well that's the plan!
No comments:
Post a Comment