Seeing as our boat is our home, strictly speaking, ‘home’ is wherever the boat is but ………… if anywhere can be called Base Camp, it has to be Crick.
We zoomed through the Braunston Tunnel without meeting another boat (a 1st for us), were inundated with offers of cheerful help from volunteers at the Watford locks and then sped through the Crick Tunnel, again, all on our own! We left Crick in mid March and have returned mid October having travelled 600 miles and gone through 324 locks. This year we have visited lots of new-to-us waterways:-
- The Erewash Canal
- The River Trent downstream as far as West Stockwith
- The Fossdyke
- The River Witham
- The Chesterfield Canal
- The Stourbridge Canal and
- Parts of the B. C. N.
There have, of course, been ‘incidents’ – things which were problematic at the time but in reality only needed patience, ££££ or both to solve. The Big Black Cloud – Maggie’s premature death could be prevented by neither and will take a long time for us to come to terms with. After all, only 3/4 of our crew have arrived back safely.
BUT – overall, we have had a really good cruising year, spent happy times with friends old and new and been to some interesting places.
Back here in the marina, we have things to sort out and then, if the weather remains reasonable, I think we’ll go to Foxton and back – don’t want to get into Winter mode before we have to.
I think JG quite enjoyed Foxton, there was plenty of activity and he even got to help with one or two of the locks. I still like the caffee/pub at the bottom....
ReplyDeleteGosh - another year's cruising nearly over. Where does the time go? Hope to see you before too long! x
ReplyDeleteYes, it would be lovely if you could come and spend a weekend here with us. Graham really poorly. xxoo
ReplyDeleteHi Del-boy,
ReplyDeleteYes, Foxton is one of our favourite places on the system.
Perhaps you can organise old Toad for another visit to the marina some time? It would be good to see you. xxoo
Yes it would be nice to come up and see you. In fact it would be fun for us all to spend New Years together, its been some years since we did it and I always enjoyed those times.
DeleteBUT, you know the old bugger as well as I do, he'll diddle fart around for ages yet before making up his mind. I assume he's going to his sisters for Xmas, then there's the stress and trauma of all that extra driving not to mention the expence of buying a bag of coal (they don't sell it by the shovel do they) so I expect he'll show up on my doorstep demanding to be fed. But seriously, I think it would be rather fun, that is unless you're planning to bugger off some place yourselves....
I did enjoy Foxton! It was a lot of fun to help lock boats through the system. And yes, the pub at the bottom was excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed the B&B and pub in Crick. It is also very neat that you went through the Chesterfield Canal, and I live in Chesterfield County!
ReplyDeleteThere's been a lot of sorrow this season, but a lot of joy, too! I hope you can focus on that, and not all the rest.
Peace <3
JG