Drink, Dear Boy? [Kindle Edition]

My story was not written with the aim of becoming either a book on sailing or a travel guide. References to any locale we sailed, moored or lived in are personal opinions that may suggest for example, that Palermo harbour in Sicily is a crappy place to stay. My narrative seeks to highlight for the reader, the humour and absurdity of our diverse experiences, which include contact with many memorable characters and far too many pompous officials. Characters abound in the Mediterranean, whilst uniformed pompous officials are cloned in Greece. The people and characters we met on our travels, define the features of the countries and locations we have visited. In these pages you will find no poetic dissertations on the Acropolis at sunset, or any attempt to persuade that a particular back street market, selling tea towels and second hand DVD's, define the historic nature of the locality.

After three years of cruising the Greek islands, Turkey, Malta and Sicily, Blue Skye C found sanctuary in Puerta Portals marina on the Spanish Island of Mallorca. There we lived for three years amongst more multi millionaires than you could shake a stick at. They have amongst their ranks in equal proportion to the rest of society, nice ones, quiet ones,loud ones and prats; some make it extremely difficult to portray them in a good light.

With GA now well into his seventies, the loss of his wife prompted him to put Blue Skye C up for sale; a good time for us to move on from sailing and have a villa built in Mallorca. No one ever suggested that my ideas were good one's but if nothing else, they provide amusement for those who never put their heads above the parapet. We bought a ruined finca called Na Cuberta on land thick with fig and almond trees; here we would build our dream house. Having a house built in England can be a stressful experience and readers of my story may well be deterred from doing the same in Mallorca. However, on the premise that all problems are there to be solved, I never doubted that our venture would be a success and we enjoyed life in Na Cuberta for six glorious years, a beautiful home in a magnificent setting.
Our Mediterranean dream always acknowledged that we would return home to live our retirement years in England. However, an offer for Na Cuberta that we couldn't refuse, coupled with Jean's craving to see her grandchildren more than twice a year, brought forward our return date. The only downside was that we would be living in the apartment that we had bought for our children before we set forth on our adventure. Whilst it was modern and comfortable, it was also just one village away from the family home we had sold thirteen years earlier. The Cottage, actually three small cottages converted into one, was, after her family, Jean's biggest love and leaving it had been a most traumatic experience for her. Having to live so close to the Cottage, the home where we had lived for nineteen years, would represent a wound that could never heal.

Two years after our return to England, our search for a cottage in North Yorkshire remained unsuccessful, yet not really surprising for without admitting it we were seeking the twin of our previous home. But all the best dreams have happy endings and the advert in the local paper announcing
'For Sale,The Cottage, Boston Spa' was the prelude to our dream's happy ending. But is anything ever easy? Chicanery, introduced by the by the estate agent involving sealed bids and an element of foul play, increased my anxiety level to well above danger point. I resisted the urge to do him physical harm and concentrated on beating him at his own game.
I returned from a last ditch meeting with the vendors of the Cottage, to find Jean sitting on the bottom step of the staircase in the foyer of our apartment; I grinned at her and nodded my head. Jean broke into tears. I WAS A STAR.