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Never one to miss the chance of honing his racing skills , Ian kept upwind of them , tacking when they tacked to blanket them ( this is all nautical talk too ) . We saw nothing for eight days , no land , no lights , no other ships , no aeroplanes , nothing except for two albatrosses and a school of flying fish . After one of those trips from hell where you find yourself stranded in the US , wearing only shorts , T-shirt and sandals , carrying only a computer ( no toothbrush , sweater , or clean undies ) , at an airport thousands of miles from anywhere on your itinerary , getting to a hotel at 1 AM ( after a long argy-bargy with airline officials ) and being collected from it at 4 AM , with a dinner voucher and a breakfast voucher ( only to be used on that day , at that hotel ) , he eventually arrived at Calgary and set off in search of Anna . Because of the tides we left this mooring before the bad weather had completely passed ( otherwise we would have had to wait a further day and were already champing at the bit ) , convinced that we could weather the tail of the cyclone . Two computer scientists and a philosopher , they play a wide variety of jazz , try to practise every week , think they are getting much better , but still have regrettably few gigs , maybe one a month or so - - some for meals but none for money . There were four of us : three-hour watches , with a communal watch from three to six in the afternoon so that watch times rotated every day . But one day she decided it was time to come home , and the next week she took matters into her own hands and flew back as a surprise , arriving on the doorstep the day after Ian 's birthday . You have to admire them : in fact , on every visit home he finds his folks always have more to teach him , in terms of how they cope with life and inevitable infirmity . Pam plays in several recorder groups in both Hamilton and Auckland . ) He has published two books - - a second , greatly expanded version of Managing Gigabytes and a brand-new book called Data mining ; he is extremely proud of both . A metaphor for our year ? We stayed in a convent : hard narrow monastic beds with a thin blanket but no sheets , plain white walls , empty rooms , no furniture , no pictures . But on Christmas Eve Santa brought a sleeper with a spacious cabin for four , wide leather beds , clean sheets , lights , a locking door - - and best of all , no company . After seeing almost every film released this year , her favourites are American Beauty and Magnolia . Despite inevitable recriminations from both sides , we had a lovely weekend . They know their stock by heart - - no catalogs or computers - - and we chatted for an hour . Also , for a change , we have decided to work backwards in time . A great weekend was spent with Ian 's publisher and her ex-publisher husband , both of Italian descent , who live north , across the Golden Gate bridge . Yes , we do eat our sheep : Ginger 's family apparently thought that this was just a Christmas letter joke . To enter would involve a far narrower , riskier , passage , and at this point our courage deserted us and we headed back for the " civilization " ( or so it seemed from out there ! Every small harbour had a few fishing boats . There were many excellent tutors , both local and from Australia , and the real stars were the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet , the world 's premier professional recorder group , who travelled all the way from Holland for the occasion . ) So in August we raised a pet lamb , Lucy , our baby for a couple of months , who greeted us vociferously every time we came home .