Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Happy New Year.

2014 Will go down as one momentous year for us. 

We sold the boat, took off in the motorhome and travelled through, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Scotland and various  parts of the UK.

We then sold the Motorhome and went to Spain for a couple of months.

We are now back in the UK and renting a cottage in Bollington for at least 6 months, after that who knows.

Happy New Year to you all wishing you a happy healthy and prosperous 2015.

In no particular order here are some pics from 2014.




















































Tuesday, December 30, 2014

More Nice Guys

Another nice-guys-news-day....... 

One of our boating friends is going through a medical emergency, resulting in him being admitted to hospital in Stoke.  The boat is their home but the problem is that the boat is at Braunston.  It would be really handy if the boat was a bit closer to the hospital allowing the other half to (1) get her home back and (2) make it easier to visit hubby in hospital.

Luckily, the Aston Marina winter moorers heard about the predicament and have swung into action to get the boat back to Aston Marina ASAP .

Kudos to Ray (NB Ferndale), Gordon (Ewn Ha Cul) and Roly (NB Klara) for making it all possible. Hopefully I will be able to give them a hand somewhere along the line but unfortunately we are having a few minor problems ourselves at the moment.

We will raise a glass to them on New Year's Eve as they should have been spending it with their other halves down at the Royal Exchange, but I know that they really don't mind doing another boater a good turn no matter what time of the year.     

Meanwhile back in Bolly, we had an (early) and busy morning and after that we decided to to go to Sutton Hall for a nice lunch.  It is one of our favourite pubs in the UK.  Some guests arrived by horse and carriage!

The only problem was that it was packed and we couldn't get a table!

The Sutton Hall pub is right next to the canal at Macclesfield, so if you moor on the Gurnett aqueduct it is just across the canal ...

The carriage driver suggested we try the Ryles Arms pub up the road a couple of miles, just outside Sutton.

Off we went and had a very nice lunch.  It was also pretty crowded ... obviously there are a lot of people having an extended Christmas break.

The view from the pub was pretty good too ...

Monday, December 29, 2014

Nice people :-)

We have only lived in Bollington for just over a week and have visited the pub across the road 3 times......

This morning there was a knock on the door so I answered it and standing there was one of the chaps I had met in the pub!  He asked me if I knew anything about Fyffes bananas!  Strange question I thought, but I told him that I know a chap who works at Fyffes.  He then asked me my surname, which I give him ... he then produced a memory stick in the shape of a Fyffes banana!

It was indeed my memory stick, which just happened to have all our banking details on it, from both here and in Oz, with all our personal information on!!!  We put all the info on the stick so that when we went to estate agents we could show them the relevant info, in order that we could rent the house!   He had found the stick down the road a couple of days ago and he obviously had to check out the info on it.  He must have put two and two together and guessed that the chap he met in the pub, who was renting a place across the road and happened to be from Oz, could be me!!!   I didn't even know that I had lost the bloody thing.

I will now have to buy him a pint when when we meet next in the pub but it will probably have to be more than a pint now he knows that we are multi millionaires (ha ha!!!).

What a lucky day :)