Happy Mothers Day to all the amazing goddesses out there – us mummies who try and keep families together, make a house a home, spend a lifetime aiming at our kids’ best education. Sending all you mummies much love, the ones who are dreaming, the ones who are living and most of all the ones who dare to do both, not despite but (also) because of our children, including all my fellow boat mummies, to name but a few Nicky, Yuko, Behan, Carly, Brittany and all those I don’t have the time to scribble down the name as the littlies are calling but who know who they are… an estimated 100. Yep, out of a wold population of 7 billion, there’s a mere 10,000 long-term blue-water cruisers and out of that a mini one percent are families according to Jimmy Cornell.

Here’s an extra cheers to us crazy mums who on top of the usual rewarding and challenging chaos that is raising kids often add a 45 pecent angle to all we do, clean bilges (woohooo – two floors to clean instead of just one, can’t we ever get enough?), polish the odd stainless, wash by hand (or with my newest favourite – a manual washing machine), do anchor manoeuvres in the middle of making a stew, provision in the dinghy and apply LOTS of creativity to keep’m entertained on the long passages. Tap yourselves on the shoulder as most others don’t do it enough. You are beYOUtiful!