Been there, SORN that

This morning my car tax renewal arrived and I have declared my car off the road from the end of June with an online SORN. So we must really be going.

I've been clearing out Guy's room and dismantling his bed so it will be ready for him at Alex and David's house when he returns in September. I've also been trying to remove all of the food wrappers, old lunch boxes, hair, fag-ends and other organic matter from his bedroom floor to try to avoid Vermin. It's a big challenge.

This afternoon I'm going food shopping. There's already quite a bit of tinned and long-life food on the boat, but unfortunately I haven't audited it in detail as it's under a bunk which has been inaccessible for weeks. It's quite likely we will end up with 25 Fray Bentos tinned pies and no tinned tomatoes. The rest of the shop will be fairly short-term fresh foods just for the first few days. The problem may be that if we arrive at a port late and leave early there won't be time to go shopping, and also that we don't have the fridge switched on when we are sailing or anchored because of the drain on the batteries, so keeping food at exactly 5 degrees Centigrade is a bit challenging. (Some big boats have generators so that they can run their freezers, washing machines etc... they might as well stay at home!)

Just checked the Met Office three-day outlook for the inshore waters. It says: "Slack winds becoming moderate to fresh southwesterly in most areas by Sunday, occasionally strong in the north, veering westerly or northwesterly on Monday, but staying mainly light and variable in the southeast." We really don't want a fresh southwesterly... oh b*m. We are discussing the possibility of going somewhere just so we can feel we have set off, but unless we go to Walton Backwaters (about 10 miles), the next stop down is Bradwell on the Blackwater, which will add a lot more miles than a direct run to Ramsgate. Looks like Walton then...