Freedom!

There are 2 great reasons for us to pop a champagne cork and celebrate. The first is that Nicky had her last formal day at work on Friday and so we can both now concentrate full time on the final preparations, both at home and on BV, before we set off long-term. The second reason to celebrate is that we have slipped our lines for a 5 week cruise; a longer time than we have ever had before to sail because we have always been restricted by work commitments. This new freedom feels great! We are aiming to visit the northern areas of the Bay of Biscay, whilst also hoping for some warmer weather, but who knows where we will end up with the unsettled weather we are experiencing in northern Europe at the moment. We are both keeping our fingers crossed that, after the pretty ropey weather so far this year, things will settle down for these last few weeks of the summer.  An Indian Summer would be perfect.

Some people have asked why we don't just set off for the Mediterranean now. A very good question, and it is a very tempting idea. However, Nicky still has a few loose ends to tie down at work before she is fully off the hook, we ideally would like to move house in the Autumn so that is all sorted before we set off, plus we need to spend some time properly loading up BV. Packing her for moving onboard full-time will be a bit more involved than it has been for our previous holidays. But for now... the sun is shining and BV is pretty much ready to go, so ignoring all of that boring admin and escaping for a 5 week shake-down cruise (which will allow us to test out all of the improvements we have made to BV) seems like the very best thing that we can do with out time.  It's going to be awesome!