April, come she will

Or rather, come we will. A winter's silence on the blog reflects several happy months at home in the New Forest, and Erin Mae's survival of the storms and floods. The marina has a webcam about 20 metres away from her, looking straight up our jetty, so we were able to check that those fearful winter winds were doing no damage.

Last week a quick overnight trip with the first of the gear for the new season, and the chance to do a good spring clean of the interior. This was the first time I'd de-winterised the boat myself, and it turned out to be a straightforward affair, with little more to do than re-connect the water-pump, re-connect the shower-head, re-attach the water filter and open a stop-cock or two. I think it means I'll do it all myself in reverse next winter – I suspect that most of the workshop-rate time I was paying for consisted of waiting for the water tank to drain.

Now we have a few days during which we're getting other things set up and will hopefully get the chance to do a little painting – that's the scary bit. Also, now that the batteries are fully charged, we want to see the effect on them overnight of running just the fridge, with the mains disconnected.

So – here we go again. This year's going to be completely different, but we're very much looking forward to the it all as the adventure resumes.