New Years Eve was fun in SouthSea, probably one of our last nights out in the area as we are now packing and moving to PortSea for 4 weeks, closer to Portsmouth harbour and the ferry, and a slightly bigger flat. We’ve really enjoyed SouthSea but after 8 weeks the time has come to move.

It only took five short shuttle trips back and forth in the mini, much easier than the move down to Portsmouth from Guildford but we’re still amazed at how much stuff we have.

And then...

After a short five weeks we’ve moved out of Dragon’s Cottage and are now officially houseless. It’s a great feeling knowing that the incremental rises in interest rates (today to 4%) have no longer have an impact on us, and that we sold our house just before a recession starts.

Moving out was a little easier again, just a single trip to storage, and a car full of stuff to Janine’s parents in Somerset, Wells where she will dog and house sit for three weeks before she joins me on the boat full time!! Time flies and work goes slowly.

February 28th 2023 and we have moved onto Giramonda full time, she is now our home, despite the list of repairs and work reducing slowly but still large.

We still have no mast, but we are reassured to see it being reassembled in the shed. The teak decking work stopped when we ran out of teak planks, the new batch arrived last week and work resumes. We managed top get the water maker working for the first time last week, albeit with a small leak, and the solar arch is now up with panels installed.

We still have not connected up the new solar nor the new lithium batteries, waiting for ‘the expert’ to become available, and it is harder to get a marine electrician to commit to a date than to nail jelly to the wall. If all else fails we may need to do this in France after we leave. While we have done the bulk of the hard work to install the different components the main task is to configure the inverter/charger to work with lithium, this must be done via a windows computer and a USB link to the controller. Sounds simple enough, but a very important task.

With about six weeks left until we intend to depart UK shores and head south across the Channel to Cherbourg we have plenty of other jobs still to do: build shelves, arrange storage in a front locker for all the spares and tools we have accumulated, and so much cleaning too. I took the cabin interior roof lining down recently and was expecting a horror of mould but was pleasantly surprised to find a gleaming new like appearance, and wide access upwards to a large (useful) void behind the helm and navigation desk area.

We have only just now completed our long term (6 months) French Visa with a scheduled appointment of 22nd March, hopefully we are approved, and our passports with visas returned within a couple of weeks. Of course we could delay, but we have not set our minds on 1oth April as departure date.

With a target to get down to the Canaries by October to join the Arc+ . This gives us a relaxed six months to explore the French, Spainish and Portugese coasts, get used to sailing big G, as she is now affectionally known, and attend to any urgent work along the way.

I have now (almost) finished my corporate career, writing this update over lunch from the office veranda overlooking Victoria train station. It is a bizarre feeling being in London seeing and hearing the buzz of a busy capital city. But I will not miss the tension that comes with it; the honking of the bus driver losing his patience with the taxis and cars as they cut infant of an already slow queue trying to squeeze past the end of Westminster bridge, queuing for a poor coffee, or being handed a takeaway order as if I was invisible. No eye contact, no acknowledgement of being present.

Janine and I have both reflected that, it seems by accident, that our decision to make a change to our lives is being confirmed again and again. We no longer miss the 5am starts, the pointless corporate politics, the rushing around, gobbling lunch between meetings, an endless emails. But it seems we have other demands on our time. We still do not have enough time to keep up with our favourite YouTube channels or push through the numerous episodes of YellowStone. Learning new skills is fun but takes time.

Big G is demanding, the job list is getting shorter. The distractions are pleasant: the intense Chinooks landing on the aircraft carrier, or the fisherman starting up their engines at 7am at the weekend to take Winston the young bulldog out fishing with the budding noisy visitors. The cold is still here and we are lucky to have various forms of heating for the evening, but during the day the icy cold air holds jobs back even though this week there’s no crazy wind or rain.