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Hi folks
Belated festive greetings and very best wishes for a happy and healthy 2007. We have been very remiss in keeping our website up to date lately and I really don’t have a good excuse, except to say that we have been busy enjoying ourselves.
The weather this winter has been amazingly good so far. We have blue skies and sunshine most days and although it can be frosty in the morning, it soon warms up with the sunshine, so we can still lunch in the cockpit most days. We had torrential rain just before Christmas and apparently Lluc had 6 months worth of rain in one day. We certainly sprung a few leaks here and there and it was spectacularly wet.
Hugh’s sister Morag came out to the boat for a week at Christmas and apart from the two days of rain enjoyed lovely sunny weather. On Christmas day, we went to a mountain top restaurant near Alaro and enjoyed a walk up the hill in the sunshine to whet our appetite. We ate fabulous garlicky grilled shrimps and delicious roast lamb followed by a wicked rum and brandy mixture (cremerilla) that is flamed at the table and has to be tended to until all the alcohol is burnt off. The wine choice is red, white or rose in unlabelled bottles at 5 euros a pop and the red is delicious. The place is a working farm and has a lovely traditional atmosphere; a roaring log fire and lots of locals to practise Spanish on. Access is via a steep and narrow unmade road, which seems much less scary on the way down after a few drinks. On Boxing Day we went up to Soller and to a mountain village called Fornalutx, which is absolutely beautiful with fantastic views into the valley. It was especially clear and spectacular after all the rain and the culverts and rivers were flowing freely unlike our earlier visit when they were completely dry. We ate lunch in the sunshine on a lovely terrace (grilled squid and rabbit with onions). We were introduced to both restaurants by our new chums and neighbours Jan and Lynn, who live on a motorboat just across from us. They have recommended lots of new places to us and they have all been fabulous so far.
We do quite a lot of socialising with Jan and Lynn these days. I go cycling with Lynn most mornings, or rather chasing after her, as she is fit and much faster than me on the bike. The area around Port Andraitx is very hilly, but there are lots of small roads and cycle paths to explore although we have to get off and push on more occasions than we’d like, but its fun and a good way to enjoy the morning views. We have also been playing scrabble Jan and Hugh against Lynn and I and so far the girls are ahead, but no doubt the boys will have some comeback plan up their sleeves.
We started our new year celebrations in a restaurant in the port followed by drinks onboard our boat, then a party at John and Sheila’s house – in other words we started drinking about 2pm and didn’t stop for 12 hours. I can’t remember much about new years day – I think it involved a game of scrabble and a roast beef dinner on Jan and Lynn’s boat. (I also have a vague recollection of agreeing to cross the Atlantic next year in John and Sheila’s boat and of volunteering Hugh…….??) . We seem to have a very active social life here, lots of it involves food and drink and Hugh trying to avoid more scrabble!
Hector has been exploring the local shore extensively. I had to retrieve him from the bus stop one day, (of course he is completely stupid as he didn’t have money for the fare ) but over all he sticks fairly close to the boat, is much more confident with strangers (he scratched one girl who was determined to pet him) and has even met some of the local cats. He is now an expert user of the gangplank and will head for shore even before the plank has been lowered to the dock. He is also quite happy to sit half way along the plank to watch the world go by and to study the marina fish below him.
Alex is coming over for a week on the 29th January and we are hoping that we will get a few more visitors before we have to leave here at the end of April. The boat is coming out of the water for a week at the beginning of March – scheduled for the 5th, but we are in the hands of the marineros for the actual date.
Hope this finds everyone well
love Anne x
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