11th July. Koge

It was a grey, overcast morning with a strong NNWly wind. Scrambled eggs for breakfast cheered things up a bit with coffee. We set off around 1000  and set double reefed sails heading SW into the shipping channel, I had been going to go to Hamlet’s castle at Helsingor but as it was going to be an unpleasant beat to windward decided to return to Koge instead. We had a pleasant downwind sail past the airport then headed SW to Koge by which time we were on a close reach with about 17 kts of wind. We had maraconi cheese for lunch, just in time before people started to feel a bit queezy. There was about 2 hours of this sailing, some - a little too much, movement before we arrived at Koge and berthed in the same berth I’d used the previous time, an ordinary marina berth. A child or two had to be roused prior to our walking into town, the pretty medieval town I’d visited previously. We walked past Stacy’s diner and didn’t buy ice creams.

By the time we’d arrived at the square we needed some restorative refreshments and a combination of Tea, Coffee and ice creamwaffles and chocolate milk shakes were provided as we sat under umbrellas in the square whilst the rain started. Simon and I had a discussion as to what 30% chance of precipitation meant, to him it meant meteorologists thought almost no chance of rain, to me it meant it was likely to mean 30 minutes in a hundred. It turned out we were both wrong but did explain, to a certain extent, why he kept being wrong, having looked at the forecast and pronounced that there was no forecast rain and we kept getting wet. I had providently brought my jacket but in fact we waited until the rain had stopped before leaving and pottered about the shops with some fine danish cheeses being bought and a couple of frocks for upcoming weddings and gardening. A turn about a charity shop was also required  by the girls whilst Simon and I, having set off for a look at the pretty canal, were attracted to some rock music  down at the harbour and, crossing the rail track, we ended up on the quay, with a selection of pubs and cafes with  seating  and a Rab C Nesbit looking character with a microphone and amplifier with backing music absolutely belting out AC/DC numbers and making an excellent job of it, the crowd were obviously enjoying it immensely with a couple of inflatable guitars being ‘air guitared’ enthusiastically and some dancing. It may have been that almost everyone there was even older than me but all having a really good time. After really good and well pronounced version of ‘the biggest balls of all’ we left them for  a continued walk along the river / canally thing and then back past the oldest building in town, 1507 or something, church and along the woody walk back to the marina. I had Lasagne ready to go but it seemed like a visit to Stacy’s might be required so we had burgers there for dinner and towards the end of the meal a live band, also not in their youth,  started playing Credence Clearwater Revival numbers with some other rocky tracks as well and they were also very good. The audience was a similar age to the AC DC one making me feel about normal.

Simon and I stayed on for a couple of beers before returning to the boat to sample the cheeses which required some wine to wash it down.