Boats, Trains, Planes and Automobiles

Today was the day, the last day on the cut....it probably won't be the last day as such, but it was certainly the end of our cruising time.  We will probably do a few weekends away from the marina, whilst waiting for the boat to sell.

It was only a short hop back to the marina through one lock this morning.

So away we went leaving last night's mooring ...



Into Sandon Lock ...

Elaine smiling. as always ...

There was a bit of traffic at the lock so I stayed on the boat and let Elaine work it with the various crews that kept appearing!  We were very way of not wanting any little accidents on the last lock so took it all steadily!

The dogs were behaving strangely - they seemed to sense something was going on!
They hid under the wood pile at the lock - something they have never done before.

This was a first - we watched a lot of people get off this boat, nothing strange about that but what was a bit queer was the fact that there was used toilet paper on the side of the boat!!!

Why???

The dogs normally look happy, but not today...

Poor Sammie :-(

Turning into the marina ...

And there we are back safely  in a berth. We are halfway down on the left ...

There she is, all safe and sound ...

We quickly sorted out the security passes and paid for a 1 month stay - we are paying on a month by month basis.  That sorted, we walked as fast as we could to Stone so that we could catch the train to Macclesfield.  We passed NB Sanity Again moored up in Stone - Bruce was probably reading the paper of having his post prandial doze.

We missed the train so we had a coffee and nibbles in Stone as we had an hour's wait till the next one.

Just love Stone railway station ...

Whilst waiting for the train, this flew overhead - it's a Boeing B17 Flying Fortress.  I googled it tonight, it is the Sally B, the last flying B17 in Europe and was en route from Cambridge to Belfast ...

As ever, the dogs enjoyed their trip on the train.  We are so lucky in this country that we can take the dogs on public transport - as I may have mentioned previously, in Australia it is an absolute no-no to take a dog on any public transport!

Once back at Macc we went and had a chat with Elaine's dad, then it was around to Elaine's brothers house to pick up the car.  It has had a cover over it but has been stored outside for a few months - we had to jump start it but apart from that she ran a treat back to the marina.

Tonight we went out for an absolutely superb Thai meal in Stone, a really lovely end to a rather sad day.

Tomorrow we will start cleaning up the boat and getting the fire ready for the fast approaching winter....nnnoooooooooooooooo!