Update & lowdown: Hello November

Folks, happy November to you all ~

A little bit of a shake down herewith, given that my first three months back on land haven’t provided sufficient opportunities for sending you any great deal of procrastination material. If we reverse the thinking a bit, I remember that three months into the ocean clocked Dippers and I as only just having passed the half way mark after our crazy bit of ocean knitting. And we had just had our first 360 of the trip – the first capsize. In spite of the crazy bits, I do miss the ocean and our simple life on the waves.

Do I pass?

I think that I could just about pass for a fully normalised ‘Real Worlder’. What do you think? Certainly the wobbling, freaking out and derailing happens less frequently nowadays. This is most definitely a good thing as the re-entry to the aforementioned ‘Real World’ has been a great deal trickier than I found the previously aforementioned crazy bit of knitting in the middle of the ocean.

Talking, speaking, talking

Yes, these are both the same thing and I am doing huge amounts of both at the moment, while still being surprised and overjoyed at the fact that I can earn a living essentially from telling my favourite adventure stories. It is great fun, challenging and hugely interesting to meet such very different audiences.  So far I have spoken at corporate gigs, given assemblies to little people through to bigger people; I have lectured to boardrooms and conjured up the ocean in Scout huts; shared my lessons with Executives at business breakfast clubs and eased folks through the post-luncheon haze and  also entertained merry diners at, well, er, after dinner events. Tomorrow I will be in Chester cathedral, next week at Windsor Castle and the following week back in my beloved Oxford. Each day is different and I am loving the challenge of tailoring my tales to the varied groups.

Please email info@womenspeakers.co.uk if you are interested in getting me in to share some salty tales with your crew. The story is so versatile that any message can be woven in, so long as it is not about reducing chocolate consumption. That would be too tricky.

Writing

It is a fickle world, this literary one and the much-dreamed of advance is still only hypothetical and much dreamed of. As such, I am taking the opportunity to keep my bank manager happy by the more immediate rewards obtained from speaking engagements. Fear not, we’re still aiming at a publishing date to tie in with the one year anniversary of the row, so you should have some reading material for the summer holiday.

Documentary

We are currently pursuing alternative funding routes as the TV world is at least as fickle as the literary world and it looks like the best option will be to produce independently. If any corporate or individual is interested in the soft sponsorship of the documentary, which will be sold to broadcasters across the globe, then please email me (hello@sarahouten.co.uk).  The race is on to raise the capital before history gobbles up the living memory into the recesses of yesteryear.

Salty best,

Outey Toot Toot x

The PS Brigade

And finally, the much loved PS Brigade – singing their post scriptum notes in fine fettle, as always:

PS   30^th November: 7.30pm:  Oakham School Chapel: A full length fundraising talk by Dippers and myself, complete with slides and video. Tickets available via hello@sarahouten.co.uk or by calling 07916 167540

PPS   23^rd November: 7.30pm : BBC 1 East Midlands Today. A little documentary about Dippers and I adventuring on the high seas.

PPPS   Parents, please don’t blame me when the little people say that they want to try their hand at eating five hundred bars of chocolate.

PPPPS Super pleased to report that the holes in Dippers’ hull, sustained during our reefy episode in Mauritius, are only cosmetic. She is now resting quietly, while being used for occasional photo shoots. Results from the shoots will be released in due course, but they are all quite secret at the moment.

PPPPS Very exciting news from the ocean last week : the Rt Hon Monsieur Tweedle le Grand sent me a  finmail to let me know that he and the others were now back in Perth for the summer. They send their scaly best.