2016 UK
Arriving back in the UK in September 2015, we faced the difficult task of settling into ‘normal’ life. It took us a few weeks to clean the house and unpack – having unpacked most of it, we realised that it would be easy to clutter our lives with unnecessary ‘stuff’ – things which have been in storage for 14 years – important at the time but probably destined for charity or E-bay.
Being unsure of the cost of living back in the ‘normal’ world, it was necessary to revisit office life and a 9-to-5 existence. In November 2015 Christine started work with Oyster Yachts as a Management Accountant – they couldn’t believe that they had found someone who a) was a Management Accountant, and b) knew about yachts! She enjoyed the assignment and ended up working all the way through to Christmas 2016. It was also good to replenish the bank accounts!
In the meantime, Gill & Aidan, our sailing friends, had sold their boat Dunworkin’ out in Malaysia and had moved back to the UK. Although they owned two houses, both were currently rented out and there was a problem ending the lease agreement before they could move in. So, they came to stay with us in Southampton and used our house as a base while they planned various exploratory trips overseas. It was great to spend Christmas with them.
Gill & Aidan were repaying our hospitality by helping Keith renovate our house in Holbury while Christine was at work. She thought it was wonderful to come home to a lovely dinner and see the progress they were making. All the walls needed patching, sanding and painting, and they laid new carpets up the stairs and into the bedrooms. Later, during the summer, Aidan helped Keith lay engineered oak timber flooring to the downstairs areas.
In February 2016, Keith picked up a contract sorting out a business issue for a contact lens manufacturer. The work involved building a new pricing model from scratch that would be able to account for the half a million lines of pricing data they had, as well as tens of thousands of contract prices. As always, Keith’s ability to handle large quantities of data was astounding. The final model was an extremely impressive Excel masterpiece!
In March we caught up with Rob & Jas (Keith’s son and his wife) and their daughter Rosie on a day out at the Basingstoke Canal. Rosie was now nearly 2½ and an absolute delight.
In April, our good friends, Maggie & Trevor, invited us to join them aboard their catamaran Kouba for a trip to Newport on the Isle of Wight along with several other yachts from the Ashlett Sailing Club. Although theoretically ‘spring’, it was bitterly cold – and it was odd to see the boats dry out on the mud at low water. It had been years since we’d seen that, thankfully!
Having eventually gained access to their property in Luton, Bedfordshire, Gill & Aidan were renovating one of their rental properties between tenants. Keith and I visited them one weekend and spent one fascinating day at Bletchley Park, the principal centre of Allied codebreaking during the Second World War.
For Christine’s birthday in May, we visited the original seat of the Shirley family, Ettington Hall (Shirley is Christine’s maiden name). Set in 40 acres of parkland and filled with suits of armour, oil paintings and a selection of resident ghosts, the stately home is the family seat of 69-year-old Philip Shirley, the present owner. He is almost the only person in England who can trace his lineage back to the Domesday Book by uninterrupted male descent. Ettington Hall is currently leased out as a 5-star hotel.
A tradition that dates back many centuries holds that on a leap day a woman is allowed to propose marriage to a man instead of waiting for a man to offer a proposal. 2016 was a leap year… Christine booked a table for two at one of our favourite eating establishments for 29th February – planning to get down on one knee in the restaurant and propose to Keith. When she mentioned the dinner date to him while on the drive to work one day, he must have guessed her intention… His manly pride was at risk so, with trepidation, he raised the subject of matrimony (a very romantic setting!) He was very relieved when she said “Yes”.
It was then left up to Keith to choose a wedding date and get everything organised. The first decision was ‘how’ and ‘where’. The ‘how’ was easy – we were going to elope; anything more would be way too complicated with Christine’s family on the other side of the world. The ‘where’ was also easy – Southampton Registry Office in the historic medieval quarter. It all turned out to be more complicated than we’d expected to arrange, but eventually we settled on 23rd June – election day for the Brexit vote! In the end, it was a lovely, intimate ceremony – only six people attended: bride and groom, Jill & Mike (ex-cruising friends) our two witnesses, the registrar and a celebrant. After shouting Jill & Mike lunch at a pub close to Southampton Airport, Keith and I flew off to La Rochelle for a few days honeymoon.
An amusing aside was that our suitcases were laden with boat spares; Maggie & Trevor from Kouba were cruising the west coast of France and were aware that we were going to La Rochelle – but not that it was our honeymoon. They needed some boat spares and asked if we could help out – no problem – that’s what cruising’s all about. We met up and had a further celebration or two in the old port of La Rochelle – a fitting end to a great event.
In July, our friends Chris & Fiona (Three Ships) were due to complete their circumnavigation at Caernarfon in North Wales. We’d first met them in Gibraltar in 2003, and they had encouraged us to cross the Atlantic and carry on sailing. We drove up to Caernarfon to greet them – what an achievement – they’d racked up 90,000 nautical miles.
Towards the end of the year, Gill & Aidan purchased 10 acres of farmland in a beautiful part of Dorset, with views over the downs. There was an old fibro house which they lived in while getting permission to replace the run-down barn with a huge steel frame one.
Christine’s employer, Oyster Yachts, had a subsidiary based in Mallorca, Spain – a popular holiday destination. She was asked to go over and introduce a new accounting package and train the local staff – a great opportunity – we’d never been there before. We decided to pay for Keith to come too and extended our stay over the following weekend at a resort hotel – playing like real tourists! We could see the attraction of just basking on sunbeds next to the pool or seashore, wallowing like a harem of sea lions – but decided that’s not what we were looking for.
One day in December, while Christine was still working, Keith went up to London to catch up with Rob & Jas and Rosie (now 3) – including a trip up The Shard. The viewing platform is 244m above the ground – just as well Christine wasn’t there! Just a few days later, Jas gave birth to their second daughter, Juno.
And, of course, we rounded out the year by celebrating Keith’s 65th birthday. He now qualified for the UK State Pension – we decided that it was time for Christine to retire, too!