Home Thoughts Weekly

I had such plans for this year; writing plans for a novel and a novella, running plans for another Cardiff Half Marathon. But I hadn’t bargained on the posterior vitreous detachment, which temporarily knocked out a big old chunk of the central vision in my left eye, or the debilitating health problem which saw me fast-tracked then, thankfully, declared free of anything sinister. Just a couple of loose ends to tie up and all should be well again. Perhaps things do happen for a reason; this year also brought the utterly amazing experience of being with Lily and Russ when their daughter was born, and with no deadlines to worry about, I’ve had the joy of spending unhurried time with our new granddaughter. Having Rose and Si move closer was an unexpected bonus and makes getting together a lot easier; a couple of weekends ago, for example, we had brilliant time at the Millennium Stadium watching Wales play Uruguay. However, with my personal goals in disarray, there have been m...

Blue skies at Goodwick yesterday ‘Someone’s going to be busy,’ says the cashier at Wilko eyeing our bucketful of cleaning goodies. Summer in west Wales, like the roses outside our kitchen window, showed early promise before being battered by strong winds and heavy rain leaving only a glimmer of hope. But today, the sun is shining so what are we doing to make the most of this rare bright day? Why, we’re scrubbing the boat, of course! Actually, one of the aspects of sailing that I really like is the ‘playing houses’ bit, making another home from home. We’re currently working our way through washing the teal and white upholstery covers, we’ve tackled the mainsail cover – which included The Thing That Crawled Inside, Cr*pped Itself and Died (discovered when Tom shook the mainsail out over me, Rose and Si when we were eating our sandwiches) – and now, I’m cleaning the inside whilst Tom sorts out power and water to clean the outside. For a 23ft boat, Blue Nun’s surprisingly spacio...

Today I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog splash for fellow ChocLiteer Rhoda Baxter to celebrate the release of her latest book, Please Release Me, which has a rather unusual premise for a romantic novel. In Rhoda’s own words, “Please Release Me, is a contemporary romance with a touch of the paranormal, published by Choc Lit Ltd. It’s set in a hospice (granted, that’s not the most intuitive setting for a romantic comedy…) and features Sally, whose body is a coma while her ghost gets to walk through furniture; Peter, who reads to his comatose wife every day; and Grace, who is the only person who can see or hear Sally’s ghost. It’s a story about moving on in one way or another and about how people need each other, especially when they think they don’t.” Something else you need to know about this book is that Rhoda’s generously donating half the royalties from it to Martin House Children’s Hospice. When Rhoda invited me to take part in her blog splash she suggested ‘being stu...

Tom, to his great credit, is presenting a paper at The Society for European Philosophy and the Forum for European Philosophy Annual Conference in Dundee. This leaves me with some freewheeling time to explore a city that’s famous for the three ‘js’; jam, jute and journalism. Keen to find out more, I head for The McManus, a neo-Gothic building designed by George Gilbert Scott which houses an art gallery and museum. An exhibit in ‘The Making of Modern Dundee’ reminds me that Dundee’s also famous for the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879; there are pieces of the collapsed bridge, fragments of glass from the doomed passenger train, and poignant memorials to lost lives. It’s a bleak story in this dark, almost empty gallery so I move on only to find myself standing in front of a couple of enormous whale harpoons. Whale oil, I now know, was essential to jute processing, softening the material and making it flexible, but these relics from the whaling industry still make me uncomfo...

‘I think I’ll try an offer,’ says Tom . ‘What do you think?’ ‘I think the same as before,’ I reply. ‘I’m still concerned about time and money.’ ‘Hmm,’ says Tom. The subject of all this intense thinking is a rather forlorn yacht lying locally whose owner has run out of, er, time and money so has put her on the market for what’s really a very competitive price. After we sold the dreaded Pig Boat , there were a couple of years when we were both quite glad to be free of all the responsibilities (ie bills) that boat ownership brings, but it wasn’t very long before Tom starting poring over boat ads and shouting, ‘come and look at this one!’ at regular intervals. Perhaps it was because I was fed up with looking at the rain and perhaps it’s because, in these PhD days, part of me’s nostalgic for the guy who liked to mess around in boats, but eventually I’m persuaded to view one of Tom’s discoveries. We clamber aboard and as I peer down the companionway at the clutter below, I feel… e...