Only a couple of weeks before we start of on our six month, grand trip up North and good chums Cecilia and Clive drove up on Wednesday, from North London to spend a couple of days with us. The day was wet and windy so we enjoyed the company, conversation, chocolates and wine and delayed setting off until the sun shone on Thursday morning. Clive owns a proper sailing boat, but was amazed at the amount of activity on the canals and they especially enjoyed the activity around Braunston. Fortunately Val & Jean from N.B. Rune, close neighbours of ours at Wigrams, were just vacating their ideal mooring spot close to the entrance to the marina and we gratefully took over their space. The picture of the intriguing caravan was taken in the car park at Braunston Marina; even by narrow boat standards it is very compact.
The return journey to Wigrams in the afternoon wasn’t as wet as we expected but just as we turned into the marina the rain poured down so we cruised up to the quay side so that Cecilia and Clive could alight right next to the car park and after a quick farewell we headed back to our pontoon.
Good Friday and the marina was buzzing with holiday makers turning up to take over their Black Prince boat for a week or two and many private owners coming to check out their boat after the ravages of this winter, we just kept our heads down.
Now for the Family; my Sister Dawn and her son and his wife Dene and Bryony and two children arrived mid day Easter Saturday. The sun to our surprise was shining bright and we immediately headed out towards the Folly. Dene and Bryony’s son, James, is a very keen fisherman and as soon as we had moored up he got his rod and net out, but to no avail. Abby, their daughter and Duggie got on as if they had been together all their life. A walk to the locks showed how busy it was and confirmed our earlier decision not to try and give a locking experience to the family, Instead we bought ice creams and watched the queue of boats work their way up and down the first lock, whilst Duggie sought out a Scottish Deer Hound to wrestle with.
As soon as we got back to our marina, having dodged the rain clouds, that had been bubbling up all afternoon, there was lots of waving as we said goodbye, having thankfully persuaded Abby that maybe she would be better of with Mum & Dad rather than staying on SKYY with us, although we know that it was Duggie that was the attraction, but a very enjoyable day for all.
Again thank you to Colin and Denise and their Mini Schnauzer Pip and to Carol and George and their Patterdale terrier Molly for their supportive comments regarding the Dog Blog, but hopefully the balance between boat and dog blog will be about right once our adventure gets underway.
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