Something for the weekend Sir?

My mission was to visit the chandlers, get a haircut and a loaf of bread. In the event, people were queuing out of the door of the chandlers so it was off to find a barber. Obtaining a haircut while cruising has been a mixed bag of experiences. At the zenith of these experiences was a haircut in the Railway Station concourse in Inverness where the hairdresser was very attractive, exceedingly and revealingly well-endowed and seem to delight in thrusting her assets into me while ministering to my hair. The experience here in Horta was the opposite end of the spectrum with an exceedingly portly hairdresser who had to lean over her ‘portliness’ to reach my head and what was in between made unwelcome contact with me. Having said that it was a very good haircut and the cut, beard removal and eyebrow trim cost a meagre 8 Euros so it was not all bad. In fact Barry who has fewer hairs to cut was only charged 6 Euros!

The yacht paintings here are everywhere and there seems to be a sort of regeneration as they fade and are over painted. We intend to add our own but will consciously try to avoid offending anyone by squeezing our modest contribution into a gap and adjusting the artwork (?) accordingly.

Ollie writes:-

With the skipper’s breathy description of his haircut in Inverness, I feel I should add to the ‘Carry On’ atmosphere by writing a gag about his later sentence – ‘squeezing our modest contribution into a gap.’ Perhaps not though, if we make this blog too post-watershed we might lose one or two followers, thereby cutting our readership by up to fifty per cent. That would be especially imprudent given who we met at the yachtie soiree last night. Picture the skipper, barely managing to contain his excitement as he’s introduced to a certain young lady;

“Nick, this is Helen, she’s a feature writer for Yachting World. She’s working on a piece about the ARC.”

We’d barely finished introductions before the skipper’s card was out of his wallet and pressed into Helen’s hand. “We actually write a daily blog, there’s the URL…it may be of interest… you can even take quotes from it if you like….” I’m exaggerating of course, but a few of the skipper’s letters have been published in Yachting Monthly, and it would be an honour to feature in its rather more up-market sister magazine. Because Yachting World is really an excellent publication. What I love is it’s always so reliably well written. Not only does it have the intellectual weight of The Economist, but it’s combined with the wit and irony of The New Yorker. And if I may say, the Yachting World writer we met last night was delightful; a pleasure to chat to. And I’m sure the article she eventually writes will exceed the publication’s celestial standards. Particularly when it comes to presenting a wide range of views and opinions from this year’s ARC, including those less experienced sailors, who’ve perhaps only done one leg of the trip. [email protected]