The new year started with a birthday do for our daughter-in-law. Transporting one of Svetlana’s wonderful cakes proved a little challenging as the chicken house fell off it’s stilts on the first roundabout. I wouldnt include cake decorating in a list of my skills but I did manage a moderately convincing mending job.
As you have to give at least 3 months notice of an intended retirement, I have notified the hospital that I intend to retire on 9th April. That should give me time to finish off the end of year reporting that I do for the patient safety work.
Helen and Grace set off on the 5th for a cruise from Southampton to Barbados via the Canary Islands as a positioning voyage to start a new ship’s Caribbean season. The general idea (at least as far as Helen was concerned) was to make sure Grace had some sort of holiday from work. This turned out to be more significant in the story of Rathenice than either of us expected but you will have to wait a little to find out why.
I managed to achieve two more bits of work to contribute towards the launch of Rathenice – While the rest of the family were away cruising I took over the conservatory and re-painted the boat name on the spray dodgers. 
I also managed to combine a dog walk with a first visit to the potential sailing club on the Humber estuary. The current weather tried hard to interfere as what is usually a 40 minute journey took over an hour due to low lying fog in the Trent valley but that vanished quickly as I approached the higher ground around Scunthorpe and it was clear in the estuary itself. The club seems promising but you have to visit 3 times before you get offered a membership application.
