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Karen and Jo glammed up for
a silver wedding anniversary complete with wellies and walking boots 😉
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On Thursday evening Karen
and I drove to Rugby to pick Jo up from the station; she was down from
Edinburgh for a long weekend starting with staying with us for a couple of
nights. The towpath had become so muddy
by the boat that we decided to move up to Calcutt resy on the Friday.
First, we moved the car to
the reservoir car park used by fishermen and walkers and then walked back to
Tomlow to fetch the boat. We just had
the three locks at Calcutt to go up and Jo was happy to set them as she hadn’t
had a cruise since last autumn.
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Not sure why I’m looking
so happy at Calcutt bottom lock, but Buddy has obviously decided to stay put
and not waste his energy walking to the back of the boat when I’m about to set
off 😊
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Coming up the middle lock
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The Calcutt boatyard is in
the pound below the top lock and I was surprised to see so many hire boats
moored up and not out on holiday. We found
out why a little later.
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Once through the top lock
we reversed into the old single lock where there’s a water point and filled up
with water – I didn’t fall in this time 😉
It was such a lovely day
that Jo and I walked to the boatyard to buy ice creams whilst waiting for the tank
to fill. It was my first of the year so
a sort of landmark really. We met Chris
when we were in the shop and got chatting.
He has just started working back at the yard having had a few years off
and we got around to talking about the rain and the muddy towpaths. He told us that the boats are currently being
returned in the worst state they have ever seen with regards to being muddy.
He also explained that
although most of the boats are booked out, four had already come back early
because of the weather and the mud; thus, explaining why so many hire boats
were moored in their pound. He said that
two couples reckoned it was their worst holiday ever and they wouldn’t dream of
doing it again – such a shame as I suspect very few people would think like
that if the conditions were better.
We moored at the one free
spot left on the offside with Chris’s boat in front of us and Paul with his two
boats in front of him.
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It was good to have a
catch up with Paul; we hadn’t seen him since we were here last September. Poor Paul has to lug two boats around with
him – the second boat was his girlfriend’s and it seems she has become an ex as
she hasn’t come back for many months now.
We woke to a glorious
morning on Saturday and got ready to travel down to Oxford for the day.
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Looking back to Calcutt
top lock on Saturday morning…
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…and in the other direction
towards Napton junction
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The reason we were off to
Oxford was to celebrate Karen’s sister’s silver wedding anniversary. Heather and Keith had hired a hall at
University college for the evening. It
was an excuse for the girls to dress up, hence the picture at the top of the
blog. The path to the car from the boat,
across the reservoir, was really muddy so the girls had to put their boots
on. We dropped Buddy off at his ‘hotel’
in Leamington. He stays with a really
nice couple who dote on dogs and Julie sends pictures or videos every hour or
so!
Before the party, we were
meeting up with Karen’s other two children, Matthew and Catherine but first we
split up as Karen and I had some shopping to do. I needed a suit for Sophie’s wedding in June
and we also wanted to replace some of our saucepans and frying pans. We were successful, which was really good as
we both hate shopping 😉
Later in the afternoon we
met up with the children and they treated us to a delicious afternoon tea which Matt and I enjoyed with a beer rather than tea:
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Then it was off to the
college:
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Proud mum 😊
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Me and Karen dressed up for the party 😉
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We didn’t get home until
gone one on Sunday morning, but we had had a great time and are now looking
forward to Karen’s last four days working from the boat.
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