originally published on www.thegledaproject.com on 27 Apr 2014

Today Neil and I went to the Beaulieu Boat Jumble in the New Forest.  For those of you who don’t know what a boat jumble is, it is a car boot for boat stuff; well mainly boat stuff but there was a stall selling costume jewellery?! It is the 4th or 5th time we have been and this time it may be the last – at Beaulieu anyway.

Neil had a list of stuff to get; quite a few pages long.  My list was shorter; 2 lifejackets and a horse shoe life buoy.  What I actually bought was 2 lifejackets and a horse shoe life buoy plus a Dan Buoy.  This looks like a bright yellow long stick you throw in to the water in a man overboard situation which has a bright flag on the end so the poor soul in the water can hold on and with any luck be seen should the boat turn around to get you.  If the Dan Buoy has been thrown then I’d say it is safe assume the boat would come back if not just to get the Buoy back!

I also bought 3 x Foutola Towels – lured in by their bright colours, promise that they are more absorbent than a regular towel, lightweight and take up much less space.  The proof is in the pudding so they say, but I have chosen the colours as shown in the pic.  www.foutala.com  also assuming that at least 2 of the colours are manly enough for Neil to also use (he doesn’t do pink).

For those of you in the UK you may recall that this Sunday (27th Apr) was heavy showers in the Midlands and South East.  It was wet and we were on our way when I remembered that I had forgotten to put my wellies in the car – I was only wearing my Crocs (with socks!).  Too late to turnaround so Neil graciously gave up his walking boots and he stayed in his Crocs.  This was a time when I didn’t mind having large feet; make that large DRY feet.   It was muddy, not just muddy, but MUDDY and we had some heavy showers.  Wasn’t cold though, luckily.  Although we were rained on and I got dirtier than I remember since I was a child, we stayed dry under the rain coats.  Feeling sorry for Neil with mud covered feet thanks to the Crocs design, I got him a pair of Crocs wellies; no holes!  Well except for the top obviously and we chuckled a bit about them letting in rain, but at least it wasn’t mud.  Didn’t get a photo of that look; shorts and croc wellies (yet).

Anyway a successful day and Neil will blog about his purchases.