A summary of what has been happening in our lives since we left South Africa beginning of June.

Saoirse and I headed out to Spain for a week’s work - well I worked hard in the office while she lounged, sunbathed and frolicked in the pool with my parents and my friend Eilis who was out visiting!

We spent 2 days in Ireland before heading over to San Diego for JC’s sister, DD’s wedding. My parents flew with us and Saoirse was excellent on the flight, charming all around us. San Diego was lovely - we stayed with JC’s mother Myra in her house in Coronado Island (San Diego) and as guests for the wedding started to arrive, every night was another celebration/dinner party. June 18th saw me turning 40 and Myra had very kindly organised a Mexican party for me hosted by her other half Ray - they had decorated his house with colourful big Mexican paper flowers and as I entered I was greeted by a Mexican Mariachi quartet in full velvet and embroidered splendour! Mexican food and lots of wine were combined with family and friends and all in all it was a lovely evening, topped off with a real pinata!! That was fun!

The wedding was 3 days later on the 21st June and DD looked fantastic. I was one of the two bridesmaids and loved my “Irish green” dress (DD kindly let us pick our own styles, just let us know the chosen colour). The wedding itself was on Coronado Island and was right beside where much of the film “Top Gun” was filmed (it is a big naval military base). The view was out towards the beach and Pacific Ocean and the day was just perfect.

A few days after the wedding, when all the family and friends had left again, JC, Saoirse and I took a flight to Phoenix to visit his grandmother who felt she was too old to travel to the wedding. She was in great form and delighted to meet Saoirse for the first time. We spent that night in Tucson with Yvonne and Bob, old friends of mine from my Germany days and their gorgeous and charming little daughters. The next day after another visit to his grandmother we flew out of Phoenix and over to San Francisco to visit JC’s old friends.

We stayed with Rachel and Jeremy and their gorgeous little baby Annabelle. We met up with most of the friends during the visit, Eric and Monique kindly hosting a barbeque for us. I got to spend a bit of time with my old Trinity housemate Emma and her 3 kids and managed to have a dinner with Corinne, our dear friend who married us in Malaysia - all in all a good catch up. 3 days later we flew back to San Diego and spent a last weekend with his family.

The day before we flew back to Ireland was JC’s birthday and as is traditional with his family for years and years on end, Bennihana’s was booked - this is a type of chain restaurant that does good Asian food tapaniaki style, i.e. a chef cooks right in front of you for your table only and performs all types of tricks with the food. A lot of fun and a lot of food! It was a nice end to a 3 week holiday in California and we agreed we had made the most of the time there.

July was our return to Ireland and Saoirse and I again headed to Spain for 10 days work (me working and she holidaying again!). July and August in Ireland has seen unprecedented rain to the point of major flooding in many parts of the country. Saoirse and I had to devise indoor ways to keep ourselves occupied. She is now well into her routine so that makes life a lot easier. The monotony of staying in each day was momentarily broken by a visit in early August from JC’s cousin from Louisiana, Kim, her husband and a couple of friends of their also from the USA. They are all living and working Equitorial Guinea and flew over from a stop off in Frankfurt for 4 days. Weather was average so we did not do as much as we would have liked with them but they still got a flavour of Dublin and north Wicklow. I think it was nice for JC to have visitors from home, even just to hear the American accent again!

The first week of September we flew out to Denia on the east coast of Spain and rented a 44 foot boat with friends of ours Pip and Marlene and their 14 month old Matthew. In August I had taken 3 weekend courses in sailing (in the lashing rain and gale storm winds), so felt the week sailing would be a good introduction to our actual voyage across the Atlantic.

We headed out of the quaint port of Denia in the late afternoon and sailed in 25-30 mph winds for 11 hours till we hit the rather tacky and touristy port of San Antonio on Ibiza Island. We spent the rest of the week exploring wonderful coves and spent one night on the small island of Formentera. That aspect of the islands is gorgeous and well worth a visit.

We did not get to sail as much as we would have liked with the winds being light and fickle and with baby Matthew and I having been sick the first night it was decided not to sail to Palma and to enjoy Ibiza instead.

The waters were aqua marine - we were told that the island of Formetera is used in a lot of commercials to promote the Caribbean! We even made it to the weekly “hippy market” - right up JC’s alley!

After the sailing, Saoirse and I headed to Marbella and Eilis kindly looked after her while I worked my last week for what might be a long time. It is now late September. We leave on 14th October back to South Africa and our adventure will at last begin. We have rented a house for 6 weeks (2 bed - open invite to stay to anyone interested!!!) in Hout Bay as most of what is left on the boat is painting and varnishing which is obviously toxic, so we can not stay on the boat. We have signed up as part of the Governor’s Cup race and leave from the V+A waterfront in CapeTown on December 29th and all the boats end up in the island of St Helena sometime in January. JC figured that as a first major crossing it would be a safe and fun thing to participate in an organised race - that way there are medics and support on stand by and other boats sailing with us in case of difficulty or problems on our part. My parents are flying out to Cape Town and will wave us off on the 29th.

I will write again in a few weeks from South Africa. Take care and thanks for reading!