Back From Shore Leave

We are now back on board the good ship after our 2 weeks of shore leave. We did just over 950 miles in the mighty Citroen C3, it didn't miss a beat!

I will write a very brief post of what we got up to ...

First, we went to see Elaine's Brother and Dad in Macc, then it was down to Milton Keynes to see my Mum.  On the Saturday we went to the Crick boat show.  It was a lovely, sunny day and we caught up with boaters and bloggers Robbie and Suzie (NB Swamp Frogs), Gary and Della (NB Muleless) and Steve and Chris (NB Amy Jo).  All we bought was some 'you beaut' polish!
We stayed long after the show had finished having a couple of drinks and some Thai food outside in the glorious evening sunshine!

As you can see from the pic below there were not too many cars left in the car park when we left, we are the little silver car in the middle.  This field was chockers when we arrived!


In total we stayed in MK for 4 nights.  On the Sunday we went down to London so Elaine could visit her sister in central London and whilst they were catching up I went walkabout.

Tower Bridge and HMS  Belfast ...

The 72 storey Chard Tower ...

Whilst in MK we also caught up more of my family.  On the bank holiday Monday we went to a barbie at my brother's house ... he has a storage box in his garden where they keep straw and food etc. for their chooks and this has attracted some mice.  Bombo and Sam had a ball trying to find the little critters ...

Mother and I catching some rays ...

Next stop was Norfolk to a B&B (The Vines) by the beach, it actually wasn't that close to the beach but it was dog friendly and most importantly had a bath which Elaine lived in!

We went to Wells-Next-the-Sea, wearing full winter gear as it was freezing!

Pretty beach huts at Wells ...

Bombo braving the cold wind ... and looking very streamlined!

The next day we went to Hunstanton - as you can see, the weather was much improved ...

 

  

 Interesting rock formation.  We did take the dogs down on the beach where they had a good run around.  While we were down there we noticed a man picking up the rocks that had fallen off of the cliff and re-organising them by colour ... each to their own !!

 

We also called by Thornham that same day, where we found a thick sea fog ...

... which was pretty eerie !  I am sure it is beautiful in the sunshine ...

After our seaside excursion, we went back to Macc for a night, then back to Stone on the Friday as Bombo had a haircut booked and we also had to pick up the cats from the cattery, where they had been having their own holiday!

As you can see, Bombo was well impressed with his new 'do'!


Next stop was Macc for another night where we caught up with Elaine's lot again and some friends.  We got the car cleaned and then left it at Elaine's brothers house - it was sad to leave her again! This morning we caught the train back to Stone and then walked back to the Marina down the tow path.  There were lots of boats out and about - loving the sunshine - good to see !  

We got back back to a very friendly welcome committee ...

 

After we finished playing with the ducks and the swans we started getting the boat ship shape again - Elaine sorted out 'stuff' in the boat and I used my nice new polish on one side of the boat !  We have managed to clear out the cratch now, having put away the coal, wood and their respective buckets and accessories, cat boxes stored away again etc - so it is looking very spacey out there !

So that was that, a most enjoyable 2 weeks shore leave.  Tomorrow we disconnect the umbilical cord again and head south towards London.  We havn't had a look at the map yet to see which way we will go but that is all part of the fun.

Whilst we were on our vacation from our vacation we also had a good chat about where we go to  next on our big adventure ... as in, away from canal life.  We are pretty well sorted on what we are going to do, I will do a separate blog on it later !  Mind you, we were chatting to our neighbours here on the marina this afternoon and they told us they are doing 6 months on their boat and 6 months in their house in Thailand ... hmmmm, now that sounds like a good plan !!

Oh, and it's good to be back :-)