The river bank

I am blipping early as I will be spending the afternoon at the dentist amongst other things.

The river that runs through our village gets so flooded every winter when it rains, the water levels are always lapping on the edge of the street - so it is amazing to see how lush and full the river banks look now in summer, with grassy edges where people sit and enjoy a picnic or just a cup of coffee from one of the nearby cafes. I think this is Rosebay Willowherb but I was not sure as the flowers looked smaller.

I was very relieved that my problem with my Blipfoto account got sorted last night. I logged an enquiry on the help section of the website, not expecting any response for days as after all the blipfoto team are voluntary members who all have full time jobs and cannot be expected to attend to these things immediately, but what a surprise when shortly thereafter I got an email from Graham who managed to solve the problem so easily (I had to clear the Internet Explorer caches). Thanks so much to Graham, he is a real superstar!

News from the boat is that the Bay of Biscay was surprisingly flat with no wind so they had to motor across most of it, which is very unusual, but they have also seen the most amazing sea life. Apparently an enormous whale and her calf swum under the boat and came up on the other side leaving the crew quite speechless, as she was bigger than the boat at about 65 ft long – they were expecting to feel a bump as she touched the keel but of course she didn’t.  Gavin said it was frightening and thrilling at the same time, quite a surreal experience. They have had pods of dolphins and porpoises following the boat, and one pod of dolphins stayed with the boat for some time playing in the waves next to the boat – which Luke has captured on video so I am looking forward to seeing that when they get back. They are making good progress and should reach Las Palmas by Tuesday, and the boys will be flying home on Wednesday.