Doug & Jodie

Taxi Ride
Our trip started off at 5:30am when Tamara, Fi, Jodie and I got in the taxi to take us to Luton airport. We stopped to pick up Debbie and Darryl, where the taxi driver began to lose it! (we were 10 minutes off schedule). He drove like a mad-man, practically running red lights and at one point on the highway, got up around 180km/h to try and make up time. All the while taping himself in the head as if he had made a mistake… ours was getting in the taxi!

Dubrovnik
After a 2 hour flight over some beautiful views from the plane, we landed in Dubrovnik. The airport was a row of immigration staff, a bag carousel and a car rental area… no duty-free here!

We caught the shuttle bus into town, where we got our first glimpse of the old town. We got on the number 6 bus which took us “close” to our hotel. We got off the bus and walked about 2 or 3 kms, as we thought the bus didn’t take us as close as we thought. After our hike to the hotel, the concierge told us that the bus stopped about 50m away. Oh well!

We took the bus back into town, after settling into our hotel rooms. We walked around the old town, along the marble street and alleys, where we found a small pizza restaurant (as my tummy and I were grumbling). We walked around the old town walls and took a few photos, before meeting up with Debbie and Darryl. We ended up in another alley style restaurant for dinner, sea food on the top of the list.

The following day we had a fantastic breakfast in the hotel, before lounging around on the “beach” in front of the hotel. Diving and swimming off the rocks. We took our bus back toward town, and jumped off near the harbour to meet at the boat. I had been baiting Darryl with talk of small cabins and bunk beds, Darryl had been thinking of rooms big enough to do the tango in. I should have put some money down!

We met most of the shipmates before downing a celebratory grappa and heading off.

Sipan
Our first stop was Sipan. A small village about a 3 hours sail form Dubrovnik. We arrived to discover a small bay lined with houses and a few restaurants. Somehow we secured the bocce pitch for the evening, which was a great way to get to know the shipmates a little better. We grabbed a few drinks from the local store, which in comparison to the boat and restaurants was a lot cheaper. (About 60p for a 500ml beer, compared to £1.50). We had a great night, before heading back to the boat.

Polache – Mijet
The island of Mljet was the next stop, where we took a walk into the national park, in the hope of catching the shuttle boat to the monastery. The monastery was on a small island, in the corner of a salt water lake. After some brief shopping, we headed out to the main bar on the water, where we ordered in pizzas. We spent the whole night there, sampling the various cocktails.

Korčula
The next day we went to the old town of Korčula. This town was a little more bustling than some of the others as it was a little larger. Here too, had an old part of town, surrounded by old stone walls. The girls went on the hunt for cowboy hats amongst the numerous market stalls.

We had a fantastic lunch on the old walls, looking down at the amazingly clear blue sea. Jodie and I shared a 1Kg sea bream, which was cooked to perfection.

That night we all met up for dinner at a restaurant overlooking the harbour. We then headed back into the old town, where on top of one of the turrets, was a cocktail bar. We had a couple of drinks, which were delivered up the tower via a dumb waiter, before turning in.

Loviste
The arrived in Loviste, thinking it wasn’t going to live up to the rest of the trip. It looked pretty small, and not suite a beautiful. We walked down to the end of the bay, where we spent most of the day lying in the sun. In the evening we went back to the same spot, which was a typical Croatian restaurant, by run by a quirky German man. We had a fantastic meal, after which Boke (one of the boat crew) joined us for drink. He bought us all a grappa as his niece got married that day. Grappa is not high on my list of favourite drinks.

Stari Grad / HVAR (x2)
The sail from Loviste to Hvar is supposed to take about 3 hours. With some really rough seas we missed Hvar and sailed on to Stari Grad which is on the other side of the island. The seas meant it was too rough in the bay/harbour as well. Tamara, Fi and I all managed to “reject” our lunch of creamy pasta and bread.

Eventually, after 7 and half hours in choppy seas, we docked and just wanted to get off the boat. We headed over the hills to Hvar, and walked around the town. We visited the castle at the top of the hill, which is a bit of a climb though the stairs and walkways. The girls found more markets to peruse, before we found a little pizza pace for dinner, before catching a taxi back to town.

The weather had still not calmed down, so we had to remain in Stari Grad for another day. Jodie, Tamara, Fi and I decided to rent a car and discover the island. We got a small Citroen C3 convertible and set off to see the sights. We drove around the island, over the hills to see the Lavender fields, which had already been harvested. We visited some smaller villages and drove to a nearby beach (the highlight for the girls was driving past the nudist camp, where they got to have a peer in). We headed toward the petrol station to fill up before returning the car. On the way the sun was shining on the car in front of us, and we could not see their brake lights. I had to stand so hard on the brake, I think my head was out of the roof. We stopped short by about 2 feet. On our return journey from the station, we saw 2 black skid marks for about 20m. Whew!

Split
We arrived in Split, quite relieved. We had all had enough of the cramped rooms and food sliding off the tables. We strolled around the old town, before heading out into town for our last night, as part of the tour. We headed into a small backpacker-like restaurant, which had great food. We then headed into town for a big night out. We started off negotiating a maze of small marble streets, to find a bar with an underwater theme. We had a few drinks and took photos before heading to anther bar, where some more fun was to be had. The girls were drinking Jäger-bombs (Jägermeister and Red Bull) while Darryl and I had a few beers and tequila. After some entertaining dancing by all, we headed back to the boat, to sit on the roof and stare at the stars.

The next day we packed out bags and left them on the boat before heading back into the old town, for some shopping. That afternoon we headed to our hotel, which was out of town. We caught the bus, and Tamara managed to get enough information out of a fellow passenger to work out where we were going.

We had a bath and a nap before heading back into town to meet up with Darryl and Debbie for dinner. In the old cathedral in town, a couple had just gotten married and were celebrating in the courtyard by singing and drinking.

The following day we headed for home. We arrived mid afternoon, to a fairly sunny London, everyone in need of a bath and a rest.

We had a really great time in Croatia, I’d recommend it to anyone. The weather was fantastic, between 28 and 32 degrees. The people are really friendly, and the ice creams are amazing. (Can’t mention how many we had) 

After work 2 weeks ago, Doug, Fi, myself and her friend from Contiki headed out to Wimbledon for an evening of tennis. Unfortunately we attempted this on maybe the wettest year of tennis ever!!!

We arrived at the gates to a record short queue, promptly found court 18 where Leyton was playing Cannas – it was packed with Aussies under umbrellas who had seen about 1 hour of tennis since 10am and were waiting there at 6pm for the game to recommence. We were finally let it (despite the rain we enjoyed a Pimms and lemonade) and got soaked to the skin with a huge downfall! Finally the weather cleared and we got to see about 40 minutes of tennis, then the heavens opened and we dashed for the train. Despite this, we got to see Leyton play at Wimbledon in London – very surreal and completely worth it. Next year it will be sunny – we can only hope!

My beautiful sister Fiona has been visiting for the past 4 weeks. It has been so nice to have her here with us, we’ve had lots of laughs and it’s nice to have one of my sisters here to be stupid with and go shopping with! Only would have been better if Lou was here too.

Attached are some photos of her time here, those of our amazing Croatian sailing trip will follow in the next few days. We have only had a few days together in London as she went off on a 10 day contiki tour. While she was in town we spent some time along the river near our flat, walking up to the Borough markets and enjoying hot chocolates at my new favourite place (introduced to me by my friend Agrita) – Roast. We also took a long walk along the river East towards Rotherhithe.

We had a fabulous night out one Saturday with friends Gareth and Kris. Doug, fi and I started at the cave like bar – underground in Covent Garden. Then we enjoyed dinner at the fabulous Moroccan restaurant Souk Medina – lots of wine later we annoyed the people on the bus as we sung and made loud conversation on top of our double decker bus home….

Another night with Fi was spent at home with a yummy dips provided by Fi and the last bottle of Moet and Chandon which we had saved for us to celebrate our engagement with Fi – it was a fun night at home.

The final highlight of having Fi here was wedding dress shopping!!! This event is something I have dreamt about since I was born! I booked us in for appointments at some of londons beautiful boutique bridal shops. Some of them we visited on the Friday as they charge 20 pound on weekends – very posh and very rude, as we found out.

Our first shop was in the pretty Pimlico – Christiana Couture. Gorgeous couture dresses on sale, I narrowed it down to two which were completely different from each other – one with the big layered skirt and the other satin and figure hugging… Then we enjoyed lunch at trendy little Turkish restaurant later heading to Harrods ending up with drinks and cake at a French patisserie before our appointment at Caroline Castigliano. Here we were treated to champagne which was the highlight as the vintage dresses were pulled on and off me and the Croatian 60 year old pushy sales assistant completely turned me off these beautiful dresses – she was so incredibly pushing asking me to sign on the dotted line right there and then, we left with a headache and exhausted.

The next day we headed to a boutique in Fulham road – stunning dresses and then later on to Selfridges to the Vera Wang Bridal boutique – these dresses were really disappointing, to start with they were really dirty (although display stock I expected more for the price tag!) plus the staff were always rushing away from me. In the end realising we didn’t like the dresses at all, I tried on the biggest massive fru fru dresses they had – it was hilarious!!