Quiet, empty head

What a lovely quiet morning I’ve been having. Everybody went out to the beach at about nine but I wickedly stayed on in bed, only tip-toeing downstairs for my coffee when the coast was clear. “How antisocial!” I hear you cry, but darlings, remember that I am an only child and have always been rather solitary, so living in a house with four other people is a little overwhelming sometimes, and creeping away to be on my own is simply recharging my social batteries.

Yesterday John and I went sailing around Chincoteague and Assateague in a gorgeous 21 foot yacht called the Bay Breeze. It is one of my more useful (although apparently potentially creepy) abilities to go on holiday with my inlaws to a place I have never heard of but successfully arrange to spend the day on a yacht long before we even arrive. Unbelievably, in all the years my husband’s family has been coming here (ten or twelve, I believe), John has never sailed before, but we both had a marvellous time, and where I failed with horseriding, I think I may have succeeded in converting my husband to the joys of sailing.

When I was growing up, my father went sailing all the time and had a succession of boats – some he built, others he bought to restore and others he bought to sail. Some years he went off to Scotland with a friend to risk life and limb sailing in the Hebrides and on one glorious occasion he brought me too for ten days of sailing around the islands of Muck, Eigg and Rhum. Unfortunately, he sold his own boat around that time, and I haven’t been sailing since, so yesterday was especially wonderful.

But now I am sitting in my favourite place, writing to you and waiting for everyone to come back. In front of me I have the two lovely views you see above, and beside me, the dog (alas the picture is unable to convey the smell as effectively as the adorableness). I almost wish I had more dramatic things to report to my readers, to astonish and amaze you, but to be quite honest, there is nothing I would rather be doing right now, and nowhere I would rather be.