Tuesday, 20 December 2016

Birthday Boy Back on the Cut


We settled in just in time for the Captain’s birthday yesterday. It was fun celebrating with Chrissie and Chris who joined us on the towpath. We had moved the boat down to The Plough at Huddlesford in the light. It is still immensely satisfying to drive up to a nice gastro pub in your boat. A hop across the car park and you are at your table. We had cocktails aboard, then a good and diverse set of burgers and back to the boat for coffee, liqueur chocolates and warm mince pies. Very civilised indeed.

It seems feeble but we haven’t been out of the marina since our Birmingham trip and that was in August. This bit of the canal doesn’t seem to inspire us to go out for a night or two as we so often did on the Peak Forest. We loved our short winter jaunts to Whaley Bridge, Marple or Macclesfield and we will take this boat back up there at some point. That said, it was very nice to back on the cut and remind ourselves of why we are living on a six foot seven wide craft. 

It was also good to see quite a few boats moving around. There was sun on the way back to the marina and Jones positively soaked up the winter rays. Since we arrived two days ago, it has been full on – decorating the boat inside and out, walking in the few hours of daylight and lots of eating, drinking and napping as usual. All of this leaves little time for blogging or reading but who cares? 

We are off to Qmin in Lichfield to meet Elaine and David for a curry very shortly and will then have a quieter few days on board to relax before we set off for Burton on Trent. There are storms ahead and we have a river to cross but we are fairly intrepid when necessary. Jones has a full set of coats including a Barbour and a faux sheepskin (Arthur Daley style?) that he loves.


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