Fair Wind / Spanner In The Works

The lifting bridge at Whangarei closing behind us for the last time. 

Now that we're out of the great vortex of Whangarei, the game is all about building momentum.  We must attain that elevated state when motion is as unconscious as breathing, when another hundred miles under the keel, or another thousand, is all the same to us.

We aim to head north.  So my attention was caught by the forecast for a southerly wind today and tomorrow, to be followed by a week of light or contrary winds.

Clearly the thing to do was to kick the boat into sailing shape today, and to sail north tomorrow, when the winds were favorable.

But, then, a twist - Alisa went down.

I'll spare you the list of symptoms.  But the Iron Lady of Brecksville, the Indomitable Will that All Our Hopes and Dreams Rest On, spent the day in bed.

I spent the day walking ashore with the boys (very pleasurable) or being short-tempered with them while they were fishing and I was trying to get the deck organized (less so).

The boat remained un-kicked.

Late today we borrowed a car from Alvah and Di Simon (Alvah wrote North to the Night, which you really owe it to yourself to read) and drove A. into the clinic in Whangarei.

The doctor she saw conceded that she might be having a reaction to the cleaning agent she spilled on her face while scrubbing the overhead the other day - and this possibility was enough to get her complaint categorized as an accident, which in this country means the treatment is 100% on the house.  Love it.

But he also suggested the possibility of shingles.  (Will Alisa, now sleeping soundly beside me, mind that I am being crass enough to "blog" about her possible diagnosis?  Morning will tell.)

So we'll stay non-mobile until she is feeling better.  The poor thing had a pretty rotten day of it.

More soon.

~~~

Dyeing easter eggs.  Now that's childish enthusiasm.

Alvah helping Eric throw a dart.

A family "mountain climb" before Alisa went down.  Eric rode up the mountain on my back.