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Apparently, the term “ muscle memory ” appeared in the English lexicon between 1885 and 1890, although I must admit I wasn’t aware of it until I was an adult. It refers to the brain’s ability to perform repetitive tasks with little or no conscious effort. Examples include riding a bike, or playing a musical. Interestingly, the examples don’t include commissioning Missy Bear, despite the fact that this is the sixth time that we (or at least Richard) have done this. By commissi

The Datca peninsular We were not in Greece for long. We launched Missy Bear on the afternoon of the same day we arrived by car ferry (Saturday). And had checked out of Kos six days later on the Thursday. It’s always nice to climb the steps up into the boat on the hard, open the companionway doors, and step inside and find her the way you left her, clean and fresh. And it’s always a relief to reconnect the batteries, switch them on at the isolator, and find they have kept a go

The journey by foot from our canal-side hotel back to 'car-park island' (Tronchetto) was probably not too long as the crow flies. But, the canals provide formidable obstacles. And our luggage was a tad heavy. We had various options, one being to hire a water taxi to take us from the hotel’s water-side terrace to Tronchetto. But you need to have deep pockets to hire one of those smart, shiny, wooden vessels. So, we opted for public transport, for which our 2-day travel passes

We had one more night before we needed to catch our ferry from Ancona to Igoumenitsa. We’d thought we would stay in Rimini, to have a look at Tiberius’s bridge. We’d found a hotel (from the Telegraph) that looked ok, but the whole area was uninspiring, so we found a rather-nice, low-rise hotel a few miles back north. I rang them. A very sweet receptionist said, yes, they had a room, and could she advise me that their restaurant was rated no. 1 on Tripadvisor!! So we booked a

We have arrived in our second Venice. The Venice. Magical Venice. Mercantile Venice. The capital of the Stato da Mar. Capital of the first European colonial power. The blue-print for the British Empire. The Serenissima. We have driven 1,200 miles from Cirencester. And nearly 1,100 miles from the ‘Venice of the North’ Bruges, coincidentally also a famous centre of lace production. So much of Missy Bear’s travels in the past few years have been influenced by Venice and its mari