Today was a first for us – the first day ever on board Celtic Warrior that it was too hot to do anything much. The temperature in the main saloon reached 34°C and during the afternoon all we could do was find some shade and swelter. My feelings of discomfiture were heightened by the fact that I was developing a cold and it promised to be quite a bad one. Still, we did manage to tidy and clean the boat and pack for the next day. Tonight Rosemary flies in and will overnight in a hotel in Szczecin and we plan to pick her up tomorrow lunchtime or thereabouts. We will be abandoning CW for two weeks, fingers crossed that she will be OK. Our plan is to pick up a hire car and explore Poland, our stops will be in Poznań (2 nights), Krakow (pronounced kraakoof) (4 nights), Warsaw (4 nights), 4 nights in 2 National Parks and finally one in Gdańsk.

By 17:30 the temperature had fallen a little and it was time to light the barbecue. I don’t have any of the Cobb barbecue fuel, I only have briquettes but they should be OK given that I have barbecue fuel. I went over to the barbecue area in order to get it going but my efforts were doomed to failure – I think the coals are damp or degraded somehow, they just wouldn’t light. It was lucky that Richard (Calypso) had a Cobb with the right fuel and Andy (Hoppetosse) had a disposable barbecue as between them they sufficed. Tonight we were joined by two new people, Julian & Cathy, who were having a 2 week holiday on board Wild Goose whilst her owners, Tony and Marian Allwood are away. The following people were with us for this, the last gathering of the 2019 rally – Nicholas Hill and Pam Cassidy (Prospero), Mike & Dileas Turner (Tyra), Andy & Philippa Hobden (Hoppetosse), Liam & Susan Mac Mahon (Arnica), Mike & Jacky Scott (Condor) and Richard Baker and Gill Worthy (Calypso). It was a jolly evening, quite breezy and occasionally we were cooled down by the spray being blown from the fountain in the nearby pond. One nice sight during the evening was the appearance of a deer, nonchalantly grazing on the opposite bank of the pond but my approach with the phone to take a photo spooked it and it disappeared.