Harry Hippie

I am posting this to note the passing of the great Bobby Womack, so many great tunes this guy has entertained me and provoked me with down the years. Although I was into soul before I was into punk rock, I think he first came onto my radar via Robbie Vincent on Radio London when I was at Farnham. I bought The Poet on the strength of one track, and have never lost interest in his soulful voice... but it's gone.

That's the way I feel about 'cha Bobby

Gone Camping

Blissfully quiet here at the moment as Miranda has gone camping with the Brownies in Brockenhurst. Last night there was a noticable gap, by tonight I am basking in the peace and quiet. Tomorrow it will all change.

I have been out with the boys sailing today. They want to get all the practice they can in, and with hindsight today was a bit windy. It was forecast as very light but from the time we arrive big black clouds and a very choppy sea told another story. Typically we had difficulty launching and they capsized twice before calling it a day in the first race, the second time really hard to right.

After the wind had died down a bit we went out again with me in the kayak as safety boat, my arms are aching a bit from trying to keep up with them and cover the ground. A few more messy aqueous sessions and we decided to call it a day - but all good experience nonetheless. No damage done.

Precarious

Greg can no longer just sit on the side and lean out! When the wind blows he has to be out on that wire as far as he can go or they will both be swimming!

Menace

Whilst the boys were sailing Miranda was stalking prey, and I just managed to catch the evil...!

Tonight we have been playing boules in the garden, all three kids and myself together, more or less harmoniously

Racing at Calshot on Sunday evening after a busy weekend against the backdrop of Cowes. Lewis has been doing his Duke of Edinburgh Bronze in the Forest, and I have been competing in the Round the Island Race, which we almost managed to finish being in sight of Cowes at the cut-off time of 10pm last night.

The boys are getting used to their new boat which is a bit of a handful, especially with an onshore wind. Greg taking to trapezing very well....

Hill Head Open Race Meeting

The boys have been racing at Hillhead today finishing in 9th place overall. Today's photo taken by Keith Willis from a kayak! Popsie and I entertained ourselves playing on the shore and eating as much tea and cake as we could manage...

Twenty Nine

The boys had a great day sailing the new boat at Calshot, and we can all confirm it's harder to sail that they were expecting! Even launching the boat was a bit of a handful, we had a few capsizes before even getting going - and that was with fairly low winds!

Nevertheless they got going and managed to race twice, so well done boys. Lots to learn and lots of fun to be had. The run from Ashlet Creek to our sailing club took just ten minutes with spinnaker blazing.

Lewis was very pleased to round the day off to meet Alain Sign on the beach at Calshot, who told him all about his 29er experience, before becoming current 49er Olympic squad - It's great for Lewi to meet people like this, really makes him believe he can make it too...

For the curious  .... this is what they are now sailing 

 Today Miranda wanted me to attend a special assembly at her school, which I haven't done in a little while, so I went along. Turned out that she was being awarded the Head Teachers Award, which is the gold standard in the performance and initiative leagues.

Take a look at some of the leaves that contributed to this accolade, especially the use of 'bossy verbs' and also use of adjectives in her French writing....

Well done you are magic!

Bossing Beavers

Barry had a visit from a local group of Beavers, and Miranda was drafted in to answer any difficult questions, such as why are pigs tails sometimes curly, and sometimes not?

She loves being in a position where she's in charge, I guess that shows.

Helping hands

Miranda doing safety boat cover at the sailing club... and below laying the markers for the race..!

Try-out

 Not sure if you can field test a boat, technically the term must be better suited to tractors... and this definitely will be not good for ploughing fields.

The boat not quite ours yet, so Greg had to be content with standing watching, but he was possibly more excited than Lewis as he watched them flying along in almost no wind; bring on the white horses!

Bike ride in the forest

Follow me

There's been music training going on in the camp, Greg is trying his best with an occasionally co-operative Miranda on guitar. She has also been copying his enthusiasm for Garageband on the iPad too and has been laying down some nice vocal arrangements which I may post at some stage when she has perfected the technique (slightly)

Action Shot

Does life need to get any more complicated than this...?

Lights, ...camera and ...Action!

As I was on duty yesterday I wasn't able to take any photos of the boys sailing, but I managed to take a few of the racing today. The boys haven't really sailed a conventional spinnaker much before, but they are getting the hang of it. Watching Greg on the water has been fun today, they work well together as a team.

Lots of people have been showing interest in the boat at the sailing club, and tonight we discovered that my Uncle Jeremy has also sailed a Scorpion!

Big day for Lewis tomorrow as he starts his first day of work experience working with Choose Design which undertakes R&D and design-build projects within the renewable energy and marine industries...