Gravedona almost feels like home. Here we are once again, the three of us on the terrace after a home cooked meal. Tomorrow is the last day of the regatta and the boys have loved it. Plenty of wind every day, fresh water, great people … All good. Scotty managed to make it into the gold fleet but johnno Is in the silver fleet. Apparently there was chaos on the water this afternoon when they all ran into each other. They both came in shattered this afternoon, but very happy. Lovely to see two people really loving their sport.

I also have been having a lovely time. I went down to tremezzo on Monday and Tuesday afternoons. First time to organise painting lessons with a lovely Australian watercolour artist by the name of Anita Bentley. We had a great lesson on Tuesday. It is a medium that I wasn’t really interested in but I really enjoyed it. I feel that it is actually quite easy to get a picture together.

We were supposed to have another lesson on Thursday, but I ran into her in Bellagio on Wednesday and she said she was cancelling as she had a sore throat and was losing her voice.

I went out for the day on Wednesday with Vicki from Melbourne. She has been travelling for 5 weeks in a camper van with her husband and two little boys Oliver three and will ten months, following the contender regattas. Mark is doing really well … Won Kiel week and the Italian nationals. Anyway it is hard for vicki to get to do much, so thought I would go out for the day with her to help her.

We caught the bus into Menaggio and then managed to lose her within the first ten minutes. I had the baby in the pusher and she had Ollie. By the time we found each other an hour later she was hysterical and I was really worried about her. I kept thinking … She will think I have stolen her baby!

Anyway, we found each other … Caught the ferry to Bellagio and then I found the best restaurant that I could find to take her to for lunch. we went to hotel serbelino (something like that). Anyway, the photo above is the view from where we were sitting. Will fell asleep, Ollie was perfect and we had a lovely lunch. … Dessert …

Vicki managed to get some time to herself and I had the boys. We had the hell trip home … Caught the ferry back to Menaggio and then had to sprint about 2 km to the bus stop or we would have had to wait for two hours for a bus. All told we had a lovely day … But I was exhausted!

Will playing in a boat.