Wednesday 3 December 2008

Esther & Andrew's Wedding












In October we had the wonderful joy of hosting Esther & Andrew's Wedding here at St Just in Roseland Church and at our home and the Memorial Hall in St Mawes.

They only announced their engagement in August so it was quite a challenge to have everything ready for October. However everyone rallied around at it all came together wonderfully.










Tall Ships


It was great to see the Tall Ships here in Falmouth in September.

We had a gradstand view of them arriving and leaving from our house on the hill in St Mawes.

It was also fun to go across to Falmouth on the St Mawes Ferry to see the ships. Zoe and I went over on a very wet Wednesday. I had been due to sail on Helen Mary, a Falmouth Working Boat, to take some Tall Ships crews out for a race but the weather was too bad and that was sadly called off.

We went on board ships from Mexico, Russia, Oman, Uraguay and the Pelican from the UK. Pelican is fscinating with an unusual rig derived from the old 'Privateer' / 'Pirate' ships with fore and mizzen fore and aft rigs and the mainmast square rigged.

On Friday we were invited to John Dyers exhibition at the National Maritime Museum. Lois and I chose a print to give Esther and Andrew for their wedding present.

Afterwards we went down to Custom House Quay to watch the fireworks. The St Mawes ferry came in at just the right moment so we could watch the dicplay from 'grandstand' seats on the ferry.






On Saturday the parade of Sail was amazing with ships and boats as far as the eye could see.






The Fireworks

Monday 1 December 2008

Greenbelt 2008

This year we managed to get all our three daughters to come along with us to Greenbelt.

Greenbelt is a Christian Arts Festival where about 20,000 people come to Cheltenham Racecourse for the long August bank holiday weekend for music, drama, talks, art, worship, fun and fellowship.

Here are some images.

Marion Ashe


In August we were greatly saddened by the death of Lois' mother, Marion Ashe.

She had fought a very brave battle with mutiple ailments and eventually died peacefully at home.

It was lovely that many family members were able to be with her in person or via sattelite links and Pat, Lois' Dad, was able to join in prayers with everyone.

Marion's funeral was a wonderful occasion as we gathered with so many friends and family to give thanks to God for a remarkable person.

Sailing

It has been great to get out sailing a few times this year. St Mawes Sailing Club have a Thursday evening series of races.

I have been out a couple of times on Helen Mary, one of the Falmouth Working Boats. These are large long keeled day boats which were originally designed to work as fishing boats in the Carrick Roads. They have been used as Oyster Dredgers for hundreds of years and some of them are well over 100 years old. In the winter you can still see half a dozen of them still working the oyster beds under sail. In fact it is claimed they are the last fleet of sailing fishing boats in Europe. They are not allowed to have engines!

Helen Mary is crew by a bunch of locals from St Mawes and they are a very cheerful lively crew. The Working boat races are very competitive to say the least. The boats are heavy and sail best in a strong breeze. They also carry a lot of sail to get them going. So the crews are usually similar to a bunch of rugby forwards.

The other boat I have been sialing on is a Marieholm Folkboat called Emily Too. Folkboats are a famous design of 25 foot wooden long keeled yachts. The Marieholm is a Fibreglass version which is very pretty and fun to sail. There is a good fleet of them based at St Mawes.