Its catching...

James and I have both been unwell recently, hence the lack of blog posts! Although we are both nearly back to normal, its been a tough few days. James was off work Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, with a fever, headache, sore throat, the whole lot! On Friday, I wasn't needed at work so I took a day to look after him. John Pippin very kindly gave him a lift to the doctors, who said that it was flu (possible swine flu but they have given up testing for it) and that he should just stay in bed, drink lots of water and take painkillers. Unfortunately that evening I came down with it too. Over the weekend, we were both down to cox and row lots of training outings and races but had to cancel them all, as we were just not up to going out!

It seemed that everything was catching it! Even Lyra has been looking a bit peaky and dribbling a bit... (so it might be a trip to the vet for her if it continues) and then the generator caught it too! Or so it seemed. It was no longer able to run the 20A Stirling charger, but instead spluttered and popped out the circuit breaker every time the charger was turned on. But then we tried again with Andreas and Louise's genny, and the same thing happened! With the charger off, all the rest of the boat's 240V circuit was working fine off the genny, so now we think it is the charger that is the problem. We can still charge the batteries from the wind generator and alternator so we will be fine until we can get it sorted, but any suggestion as to what might be wrong would be welcome!

On Sunday, we decided that, as we were feeling a little better, we would make the trip into Cambridge. There are several reasons for this: We has planned to go in next weekend for various social events and races, but Baits Bite Lock will be closed from Friday 22nd until the 6th. So the only way to be in town for when we need to be was to come in before the closure and leave after. We also had heard reliably that the Conservators would not be penalising visitors who did this. It was very sunny, so it was a nice cruise, apart from a very scary moment when a St Ives IV swerved in front of us despite a few turns of the klaxon. They stopped dead in front of the boat, and James had to throw the boat into hard astern. Luckily we are a relatively small light boat so it was possible for us to stop in time. They apologised, but we weren't worried for our own sake - the Duck would have come out of it unscathed! Still, no-one was hurt and no equipment broken, so it could have been much worse. We could have been Pippin for example, who would not have been able to stop in that distance!

We were lucky enough to find that our very favourite mooring outside the Fort St George was still free, so we plan to be there for as long as possible! Last night we also went to see Transforming Tomorrow, the wonderful light show put on by the university to mark the finale of their 800 year anniversary celebrations. It was quite fantastic, with several buildings in the centre being illuminated with a series of animated projections commemorating 800 years of Cambridge university history. It even had a bit on rowing! We enjoyed it very much. It is on again tonight for anyone in Cambridge who's not yet been - its really worth it! Elizabeth, whose boat we are currently moored next to outside the Fort has been instrumental in organising large parts of the show and the year's celebrations, so credit to her and her team. We were also very pleased to run into our friends Charlotte and Philip, quite a co-incidence in such a large crowd! Unfortunately we also lost them in the crowds a little later, but they invited us to join them after the light show had finished for a cup of hot chocolate in Clowns which was lovely!





Some images from the light show (thanks to Sarah Collins, from the Transforming Tomorrow Facebook event page) more here