I can remember very little of our few days back in Ameglia before we set off for Cologne for Christmas other than endless hours in the Internet Cafe in La Spezia checking trains and flights and a long conversation with Arne which filled in a lot of contextual detail of life in the boatyard here.   At one stage I gave up on cheap flights and we were about to book train tickets to Cologne, including the overnight sleeper from Milan for 300 euros each way for two, when bingo, I hit the German Wings web site.   This got us flights from Milan to Cologne for a ridiculous nineteen euros each way. Arne looked in on the boat one afternoon clearly wanting to talk and gave us a much clearer insight into his life and aspirations.   Far from being the easy going drifter he at first appears I think he really wants to settle down with the Mother of his child, but by his description she is unstable and unwilling to commit to a family life.   Overall, he seems ...

We travelled to Venice by train, changing a couple of times.   The Italian national rail network “Trenitalia” is remarkably like the old British Rail but with an occasional touch of faded grandeur.   Our first stop was at Viareggio, where we had an hour to kill which we spent in the station cafe.   Annexed to the cafe is a large waiting room with a baby grand piano in one corner, tasteful arrangements of plastic flowers and a display cabinet containing mainly empty champagne bottles for some reason.   We sat at a table next to a group of smart old ladies and a middle-aged couple with learning difficulties.   Two of the old ladies and the middle aged couple were still there when we returned to this waiting room ten days later, so it clearly is the place to go in Viareggio for those with time to kill and not too much money in their pockets.   Anyway, I had just left Sue in search of the toilets when in walked a distinguished old chap i...

It’s around midnight and I’m typing this lying in bed in “La Fulica’s” forward cabin.   There is no natural light in this cabin which is effectively a “V” shaped metal box.   Most days it is very quiet here, but sometimes if the sea is very rough the swell makes its way the mile or so up the river Magra and sways the boat from side to side making her jerk up and down on her mooring lines and rub fenders with the neighbouring boats.   It’s just such a night and from inside my metal box I can hear the mooring lines creaking and straining and feel the boat rolling from side to side like a baby’s cradle. Although it’s a month since I last wrote, La Fulica has moved precisely nowhere and for much of the time Sue and I have been hibernating.   It’s hibernating weather.   Down here the days are even shorter than in the UK – by four o’clock in the afternoon the Sun drops below the spine of wooded hills which rise high above us on the other side of ...