Day 1

No wind. I had food poisoning! Otherphil cycled to Penzance. Gazed at the wonderfull beach at Gwithian.

Day 2

Light wind. Otherphil and I tried out a 7.5m sail and managed to get on the plane a couple of times. Very far from heroic.

Day 3

Not enough wind. We cycled to St. Ives. Colleague from way back 'Phiz' cancels our meet as she's not feeling well.

Day 4

No wind. Sea is glassy calm. Can hadly believe it's November! We head home early!

I'm really excited. This afternoon, Otherphil and I set out for Cornwall. It's a lads weekend away, theoretically for windsurfing, but may take in mountain biking, kayaking and surfing...oh and lots of beer.

This is the kind of stuff I hope to be doing...

...yeah, right! So it's November in Cornwall, not the Caribbean where this was shot! And the wind doesn't look like it's going to be warm, cross-shore heaven like El-Yaque was. Still, there may be some heroically large waves at Gwithian!

I'm not impressed with the content of my blog and neither is anyone else. It's hardly surprising really. Here lies the introspective blather of middle-aged tedium and outside...in the real world, people are dying, or struggling to live.

A cyclone in Bangladesh makes millions homeless. In Russia, neo-Nazism is on the rise preaching hate and people are attacked because of the colour of their skin. In Pakistan, a military dictator is brutally suppressing democracy; a ruler once courted and supported by the USA and the UK. Sounds like a very similar story to Iraq doesn't it? People in Burma aren't free to speak their minds. Africa? Mugabe's disastocracy? The AIDs epidemic. Massive deforestation worldwide. Child trafficking and slavery. The continual rise of world population and the depletion of world resources.

Should I be blogging about these things? Surely there can't be too many people screaming from the rooftops at the world. Stop, stop! We are heading for a cliff on a precipice in a burning car with a boot full of dynamite.

All credit to Neilmac and others like him who rage against the system. For me, it's just too depressing. Providing for my family is the #1 priority and of course that's just the problem. So many of us have our noses to the grindstone that we can't collectively look up and poor water in the boot and yank on the steering wheel whilst easing up on the accelerator.

It's been a terrible long time since my last night out as Penny. Here's what happened the first weekend of November...

It was high time I arranged a big night out, partially because I don't seem to have been invited to any (some kind of hint?) and partially because that way I get to choose who I spend the evening with. I decided that the focus of the evening should be Sarastro's as the last event I went to there was a huge success [apart from one rather embarrassing gaffe on my part - adjusting my knickers in full sight of kitchen staff]. If you don't know Sarastro's, it's a showy, baroque restaurant on Drury Lane at the East end of Covent Garden. Try to imagine the inside of an old war galley, long, stripped out and fitted with all kinds of tiny balconies and dining nooks, plenty of gold paint, drapery and curios. It extraordinary, and they don't mind when a gaggle of female impersonators show up, in fact they are positively welcoming. ;-)

T, M, A, C and S joined me which made for a manageable group. Four of us met up at the hotel first. M and I had a great fun dressing up, trying each other's stuff out and M even gave me a wig she didn't want and it was gorgeous! Bless her! After the usual 3 hours of preparation (!) we set out for Soho to sample the atmosphere. The place was humming and after a bit of tottering around in our heels, C led us to the Admiral Duncan which could neatly be summed up as a rather uninspiring dump, but in spite of that we got a warm reception from bar staff and several pissed blokes including one delightful, smiley chap who claimed he was shortly going to be taking holy orders! About an hour of that and we indulged in rickshaw rides to get us to the restaurant which was great. I've never been in one before. Holy f**k do they shift, cutting in front of pedestrians and taxi's with equal contempt!

We met A and S at Sarastro's who had driven up from Sussex. We were greeted with complimentary champagne at the door! I think this was almost entirely due to T who has brought a lot of business their way over the years. Anyway we had a great meal there and the food was much better than I remember it from last time. A Norwegian lady wanted to chat to me in the loos and she was almost speechless with delight and had to give me a hug because apparently "you don't get much of this kind of thing in Norway"! Bless...

In my two trips to powder my nose I managed to avoid the same mistake as when I last visited, but on the way back on the second occasion, I was treated to a rendition of "Lady in Red" from a large gathering at one table. I suppose it was my rather short, red party dress that did it. I twitched past them but I really wish I'd been brave enough to just sit down with them and chat. Anyway, it was time to cut and run for a club, so it was probably just as well I didn't.

From there we got a taxi to the Way Out Club. It was busier than last time I was there, with lots of Thai looking types as well, probably working the scene. It's really difficult to tell with many of them (unlike me). They've fitted booths at the far end of the WOC for 'intimate chats'. C, M and I got a decent amount of dancing in and the others all found people to talk to, but after a while M looked as though she was about to drop off and T and I thought we'd head back to the Barbican Thistle bar which seems to be a good place to have a chat.

At about 1:30am, we made it back into the hotel bar and within minutes we were absorbed into a group of twenty-something year old Irish folk over from Cork. Brian, Laura, Siobhan, Mark, Fiona and Dicky. They were fascinated and wanted to know all about everything because apparently "you don't get much of this kind of thing in Cork"! We steered them onto the purpose of their visit and they explained their shopping / culture weekend to us, for a short while anyway. If they were tiddly when we arrived, they were really drunk by 3am, slopping beer, hugging and singing almost intelligible songs. Away from the club, M had livened up and she, T and I managed to keep the alcohol consumption to sensible levels, a difficult, but VERY sensible thing when socialising with Irish! M and I retired to our rooms to crash out at 4am leaving T with our friends in the bar where they apparently remained until 5:30am!

M and I were both at breakfast by 9am the next day, and feeling very pleased with ourselves for sorting out a great evening, we each munched through an enormous breakfast. Even T and C made it down before we left which was nothing if not heroic. I got home to my wife and the kids in leafy Sussex in time for lunch.

This is a brief post to say hello to my friend Jasper who must - by now - have found my blog.

I handwrote my love letter (see previous post) and posted it with a nice card. D received it today and I got a very lovely email. Bless her!

I sent it. [See previous post]

The day that I proposed to you was utterly unremarkable in so many ways. You were working in a shop in Kingston and I was at an IT company nearby. I think you got back to work after me. I had a ring burning a hole in my pocket and was a little nervous. You were your usual, lovable self after dealing with idiotic, rude customers so I gave you time to cool down and get changed before suggesting we go out for a meal. You weren't in the mood and try as I might, I failed to persuade you. So you made a Shepard's Pie and when we'd cleared the plates, I passed the box containing the ring across the table to you and watched your face as you opened the box. I asked you to marry me. You were speechless at first and then I suppose you must have said yes, but strangely I don't recall the exact words. You tried to phone your parents but dialled six consecutive zeros before I pointed out that no telephone number in the world begins with '000000'. I may have dialled it for you, I don't recall... it was over fourteen years ago.

If I had known then just how wonderful you are, I would have been a thousand times more nervous than I was. If I knew that fourteen wonderful years and three beautiful children hung on the balance of your answer, I don't know if I would have been brave enough to ask the question. It's difficult to imagine that any alternative outcomes to my life resulting from an answer of "No" would have come close to being as fulfilling as the one which did result from "Yes". You have been and continue to be a rock and an inspiration. A wife, a lover, a mother and a saint. I often think of myself first. You always think of others first.

How extraordinary it is that such a burden of fate hinged on such an unremarkable day. If I were to spend every waking moment of the rest of my life in a ceasless campaign to repay your kindness and love, still I would not be worthy of your devotion. You are a wonder. I love you.

I should send it to her.