Page published 28 August 2013
This article was originally posted on the now defunct blog. I've moved it here as the blog software is now only used for announcing new material on the site.
The Blog Post
Just 17 has now been lying, uncared for, in the dyke at the Pleasure Boat Inn for almost a year. It's close to the end of the 2013 season and Diana and I haven't been out sailing once. Is this the end of our sailing life? Well that's not the plan and I have had time for a little boating of a different kind...
Looking from the decking behind the house you see the bridge to our private island in the middle of the lake.
Our excuse is our new home. Every spare moment since February seems to have been spent hard at work. We've had walls knocked down and had a new kitchen built. We've removed ten years of dust and cobwebs to find our way back to the walls and ceilings and have now just about finished the redecoration throughout the house. Hopefully things will be back to normal next year.
Look right towards the island (complete with "Goose House") as you walk towards the summerhouse and you'll see another wing of the lake that wraps around the island.
So what has that "different" kind of boating meant? The evidence in in the photographs. What you see are the some of the grounds of our new place and the boat I have been using. Created as a fishing lake, otters arrived a few seasons ago and spoiled things for the serious angler. Rather than a fishing venue our aim is to encourage a range of wildlife. What little time I have spent boating this year amounts to paddling around the lake in a borrowed dinghy removing the excess of the wrong kind of weed and a few of the lilies.
Looking back towards the house you see the small area of what may become our only bit of formal garden.
(Maintaining that should leave enough time for boating!)
I have started a blog which records many of the sightings seen around the grounds and as things calm down on the domestic front I hope to maintain both this "Boating Biography" and that blog. We shall have to see whether I manage to keep it going...