Landlubbers ahoy!

We've spent the past three months living in utter luxury. Care-taking an amazing villa, tucked away above a tiny fishing village (Bigova) overlooking a small blue/green cove, which is one of our our favourite summer anchorages. From every window you can look out to sea; when the southerlies blow up, hours are spent simply watching the surf crash onto the headlands stretching out to the north.

From the huge balcony from our bedroom (which has floor to ceiling windows on two sides looking out to sea), rises the Orjen mountain range, whose snow-line gives an indication of the weather we can expect that day.

There is no one here. It is silent, save for the wind murmuring through the undergrowth surrounding the house and the constant movement of the sea below. The dogs get walked straight from the front door, along various little tracks. A daily habit is a stroll late afternoon as five minutes along a track means I can watch the sun dissolve into the sea. Even on the cloudiest days, the world changes colour for 10 minutes at sundown (and I don't mean it just gets dark!).

We have more space than we know what to do with. We can spend a whole day in the same house without seeing each other. We live here quite happily without getting in the car for days on end, usually only reluctantly leaving our hideaway to stock up on vegetables.

According to everyone here, it has been the wettest winter ever (and for Montenegro, that is saying something) but as we are living in relative luxury (in fact, it isn't just relative luxury, it is TOTAL luxury) the winter has been easy. Learning from last year's banging-heads-against-brick-walls experience, we haven't attempted to get work done on the boat. We've done plenty of work off the boat but have been leaving preparation for the season until the weather improves.

However, we've got two weeks remaining. Then we're back on Monty B.

Shit! Where has the time gone?

Suddenly there is a big old list of "Things to do", isn't there always, but many are "Things to do before moving back onto the boat". As we have been doing guardiennage work this winter, the rare good-weather days are spent at the marina doing exactly that. I wouldn't say Monty B has suffered as a result as she was in a pretty good state when we finished the season and I guess we are only talking one day a week of decent work-weather - so realistically we've probably only lost a week's full-on work. Which in the scheme of things is nowt. But now I'm beginning to panic a bit.

We do seem to have done a lot of partying lately, including the Montenegrin leg of our wedding which involved a significant amount of wiggery. I'm definitely not complaining on this front but I was shocked to discover that I was working my socks off all week then having a big blow out at the weekend. And quite happy with that. Which is rather a lot like landlubbin' work schmerk schmukking.

So boat life beckons before landlubbin' gets too cozy and I'm ready for it. I miss my clothes smelling of diesel.