On the water at last

Well we’ve lost this evening’s light so I thought that I’d just fill you in upon this weekend’s rather limited adventuring. Saturday started off with what appeared to be a day of little opportunity with myself feeling more that slightly lethargic, probably due to the shift pattern change undertaken in work and absolutely nothing to do with the copious amounts of cider, southern comfort and excellent food consumed on Friday night at a friend’s wedding reception! So a quiet morning’s stroll around Wrecsam’s limited shopping centre seemed about as much as I could handle in my rather delicate state. But the day was brightened considerably with a visit to Jessop’s camera shop. To be honest I’ve been contemplating purchasing a decent general purpose camera for a while, especially after seeing the recent photography by Owl on his blog Wandering Owl Outside. The photographs that have appeared on my blog up until now have been taken on my mobile phone. There are three downsides to this, firstly my mobile has a limited picture capability, secondly I detest having my mobile turned on when I’m out and about (one of my loves of the outdoors is the chance to have some solitude when needed) and thirdly I’m really bad, unlike Clare who has a great eye, at taking pictures so I need all the help that can be mustered. So after a little negotiation and the handing over of a rather large chunk of my frugal wages I’m now the proud owner of a Fujifilm F75 EXR (details on the link), so hopefully after some tuition from Clare there will be a marked improvement in my pictures on this blog, time will tell! Now all I have to do is improve my writing to the levels found on many of the blogs that I'm following.

The first racing in the frostbite series finally took place this morning and to be honest Jim and his handicap crew (that’ll be me then) didn’t do to badly at all with two second places out of the two races. Although the weather was a bit of a let down with low to non existent winds, temperatures about 8 degrees and enough drizzle to wet just about everything I thoroughly enjoyed myself and also surprised myself (and perhaps Jim) with the way I got around the boat. But then again I think that it may well be a different kettle of fish with a half decent breeze to test my new found confidence. Oh and just in case you were wondering today’s pictures were taken by Clare hence the improvement in photography. Another upshot of the sailing today was that I managed to speak to one of the club’s members, Nick, who is supplying the second Mirror hull that I keep going on about. He assures me that it is better overall condition than my little lady so I’m hoping to organize delivery towards the latter end of this week, we’ll see. One thing of note about the sailing club at Gresford is the abundance of wildlife in residence with large numbers of water fowl and some rather rotund carp lurking in the depths, now if only I could get er, yes that's it, wildlife management control rights there my freezer would be well stocked for the coming winter.

So all in all another reasonably productive weekend, unfortunately with the new shift rota that has been adopted regular weekends will now be consigned to a dim and distant memory as we’re now on a four on four off shift pattern. Basically this means that I’ll have less time to spend with my beloved Clare and I’ll be completely knackered (excuse the Anglo Saxon) for five out of the eight days in which the rota operates. On the plus side it does give me longer stretches of time to work around the house, complete projects (god knows that I’ve got enough on the go!) and much more importantly just get out there. So like everything in this world there are going to be highs and lows, I’m just grateful that I can support us and put food on the table. So that’s about it for now, hope that you all get out there and enjoy yourselves.