America Scup, Day 1

He woke me up at 0925 by sitting on my leg. This was most unfair and I objected and tried to go back to sleep but he stole my bedclothes for the hungry washing machine.

I tried to get out of the cycle ride to the seafront but I did understand that walking takes longer and that cars were going to be impossible, so I led the way and, well, I only went slightly wrong.

We found that the 'Race Village' had taken over much more acreage this year but the public bits weren't behind big metal fences and bag searches. But all the stalls and shops and entertainment were in the paying bit, and it was £25 a go or something so we were never going to do that. But we found a decent spot on the sea wall and I went off searching for Pokémon, because the seafront is packed with monuments which are all PokeStops and because the roads were closed, I could wander around in the big crowds and not look out of place.

The man on the loudspeaker got quite excited and millions of boats were suddenly out on the Solent. There is an official viewing area for yachts and I believe the whole of Gosport Marina was out there, and lots of ferries and container ships and hovercraft and Police tugboats and so forth were miraculously called upon to loiter with intent around the sailing zone.

There was a Royal Marines landing craft, a Police jetski, the RIB speedboat I went on a couple of days ago and a few Navy vessels all just happened to be there purely by coincidence. I went off for a second lengthy PokeHunt and scored some hi-level Magnacartas and a Croupyay. Meanwhile a nice lady offered us a free ticket to the Race Village, but I didn't want to go in alone.

The plane display team buzzed the area repeatedly but they have to stay over the sea, what with the new safety rules following the air crash at Shoreham. They looped-the-loop and flew at each other and went up high and pretended to stall and let off those long smoke trails and it was so good I nearly looked up from my phone.

Then the racing boats started sailing around but we couldn't tell whether it was a race or a warm-up so we just enjoyed the event in the excellent sunshine which was a right old improvement on last year, I can tell you, when even the presence of the King wasn't enough to scare off the storm clouds and the whole day was cancelled.

Popped in to cheer Jof up at her work and got some well-deserved sofatime until she took me to the park for some more Poke Mongo, still sunny and good enough to catch me some serious Garibaldis, 3 Sputniks and a Flabber. I only wore a shirt for some of the day, Vitamin D me up, Scotty!

As part of my education, Saturday-night-is-film-night was "The Great Escape" with many people I hardly know yet because it was ©1963. It started slowly with lots of impenetrable talk through handlebar moustaches and stiff upper lips but eventually I understood it was a cop-chase with 17 different villains such as 'Stolen-bike geezer' and Blind Guy and Mad Miner-dude and 2 Blokes-in-a-Boat and Round-Glasses-Nazi and so forth. Then I discovered it was epic but at bedtime I had an extended sadness about the Death-of-Nanna. She was totally on my side and I can't bring her back but if ever I am a Nanna, I will do double-arm waves and sew on Beaver Scout badges and cook oversized Northern dinners like she did.