Monday 13th June 2011 Péronnes. Bad news, so the race is on to get home.

Raining, then sunny spells, more rain in the afternoon, back to sunny spells later. I did a second coat on the coloured bands around the stern. Mike chalked up the waterline with assistance from Olly, then he whizzed round with the antifouling paint, which this time was a nice shade of dark grey (not purple!). He went to tell Marjorie the sad news that his Dad had died the previous evening and that so we had to get the boat back in the water as soon as possible and we’d decided to go with the Snail back to Lokeren in the North of Belgium. Anne helped Mike do the port side (he said Olly was right, she does slop paint on, lots of it went over him!) brushing the weld line and the strakes. I baked some part-cooked buns for lunch and Mike had soup. Mike phoned our son Peter to tell him about his Granddad, and Mike's sister Sue phoned while he was talking to Peter. The phone hadn’t been configured for voicemail so she got a recorded message in Flemish and thought it was German. Mike phoned her back. The doctor who last saw his Dad wasn’t on duty until tonight so they couldn’t get the death certificate until the next day. They’d made arrangements with an undertaker and when Mike explained that we wouldn’t be able to get there until the weekend at least she said that the funeral (and cremation) wouldn’t be until the following week at the earliest, so not that much of a panic. Back to work. Mike said I needed a third coat of colours, but it started to rain, so I went back indoors to cook a stew for dinner. He started painting the bottom, using a sheet of fibreglass (off somebody’s old boat) to lie on. He had to stop too as the rain started to bucket down. He replaced the weed hatch covers in the engine room. Anne had asked us over to have a meal with them, but I had to ask Mike to tell her that I’d already defrosted some meat the previous day and it must be eaten today. Later Olly knocked with a bread and butter pudding Anne had made for us. Gave him Mike’s recording of the last 45 minutes of the Canadian F1. Mike fixed the fridge, again.