Dover Regatta

There was a Regatta in Dover today. It is also the last "free" weekend Sean and I have available for weeks. He phoned his friend Nicholas to invite him to a pub garden lunch, but Nicholas told him that there was a regatta and as he is a member of the Royal Cinque Ports Yacht Club, he invited us to join him there. Caelyn, Nigel and Wendy joined us too. I was drinking lime juice and soda water as I find it very refreshing on a hot day. Wendy ended up drinking most of it and I'm rather surprised as I would have thought it was too 'dry' a drink for a baby. Mind you, she loves plain water, so she is unusual in that respect.

There was a funny thing about lunch. The Yacht Club had had a big function the night before and they had run out of food. All they could offer us were sandwiches and even they took a long time because only one person was on duty in the kitchen. When they arrived they would have made good doorstops, but they tasted OK. From a food point of view, we would have been better off having the pub garden lunch as we originally planned, but seeing the Regatta was rather special too, so its really a case of swings and roundabouts. We had a good time anyway.

Sean and I had a fruit juice at the County Members pub in Lympne yesterday and Sean says we should eat there because when he went to get the fruit juice he saw that the food was excellent. We enjoyed sitting in their enclosed garden as the trees and flowers are wonderful. We also saw Lympne Castle for the first time. Another first this weekend was Sean visiting the Lower Sandgate Coastal Park. So all in all, there were quite a few pleasant 'firsts' this weekend.

I go the the coastal park quite often and I have cause to bless the day I bought my Breeze 3 scooter because no other scooter on the market could cope with those steep gradients. That Breeze was worth every penny. There are loads of places I would never have seen without it so it has opened up whole new vistas. I feel that I have a life again. I was housebound for a few years and when I got my wheelchair it was so exhilarating to be taken out as I had forgotten what it was like to be part of the human race. I'll never forget that heady feel of freedom. The wheelchair was great but the scooter really gave me my independance back.



The weather was great for sailing. Warm but with just enough wind. The sea was a gorgeous colour and there were rides for the children to go on, burger and food stalls and a general fair-like feel to the day. They had a team of sea Rescue Dogs, Newfoundland Dogs. They are massive and apparently excellent at sea rescue.



Wendy had her first ever fairground ride. She was in a pink volkswagen and she enjoyed it at first but after a while began to cry a bit so the man stopped the ride so we could take her off and then he started the ride again as the other children hadn't finished their ride. I thought it was very good of him to notice that she was starting to get upset and to let her off. I was impressed at the consideration. I'm sure Wendy will like it more when she is a bit older. She was OK at first; perhaps it seemed a bit too long away from her Mum. Who knows? But it was good of the ride operator to do what he did.