Winter solstice............

Old Harry rocks from Swanage pier, originally uploaded by Need A Haircut.

The shortest day of the year is a difficult time; but with a serious amount of fog on top it becomes almost unbearable....topped off with a serious head-cold it couldn't get worse. And then there is the cancelled birthday party.

However, life goes on.

This time of year is the time of parties. Never-the-less, we still have to maintain a crew ready, willing, able and capable of going out into the most hostile of conditions to bring someone home. Generally we don't run rostas or commit to being available as such........it is just a case of, we have enough crew that if someone can't make it someone else will. However, it's not beyone the realms of possibility at this time of year that we might all want to enjoy ourselves at the same time. Thus, for a week or so once a year, we have to volunteer to abstain. Now that's commitment. As you can imagine, we are all queuing up to man the boat on the night of our Christmas party!!