RIP Frances Diana Kyle. 1932/2015

Things have been very quiet on the posting front,  Apologies for that, but its been a rough week.

While enjoying summer, SCAMP Camp and SCAMP skills, the
company of good friends and all that’s enjoyable about the ports Ludlow,
Hadlock and Townsend out there on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State
USA, I got the news that my Mother in Law was failing fast plus two other close
family members were not well.

 So I hopped the first
available plane out, and after a trip home that included three flights on an
airline I’d go a long way to avoid in future ( Hawaiian)  a night on the concrete floor outside the
security office in Honolulu airport, a 23 hour wait between flights and
arriving in Auckland in the middle of the night to find one of my two bags not
present on the baggage carosel.

I got back to find my Mother in Law at home, only awake for
short periods but still able to conduct very short conversations, and I had the
privelege of staying close by and supporting the family for her last few days.

She died on Monday last, the funeral was on Wednesday, and
I’m thankfully back at home on the ship catching up with tasks left aside while
more important things were attended to.

Its dead of winter here, short days, grey and rainy, long
cold nights.  Sort of appropriate really.

John Welsford