Catching Up and Moving On ...

In the last post we were looking for a boat to live on ... well that quickly changed!  Details later in this post.

Since I started blogging a few years ago I take the camera with me every time I go out as you never know when something may come along to tickle my reader's fancy!

This tickled mine whilst walking the boys the other morning......

Dog shit tied to the back of a mini....why?!!

Last Sunday was the Aston Marina boaters' Xmas Party.  The do was on the Sunday, so we decided to make a weekend of it and stay at the Stonehouse hotel Saturday and Sunday night.

After checking into the hotel Saturday arvo we went for a walk to Aston Marina ...

We have very fond memories of this place and made some really great lifetime friends who became known as the Aston Marina 'Hardcore'.  Why hardcore?  Well, because we were all there for each other and we always made it to the pub no matter how foul the weather!

A good example of the hardcore team spirit, is that on Saturday night Elaine and I were sitting in the hotel bar contemplating our navels when Ray and Diane rang.  They were heading back to their boat in a hire car and wondered if they could pop in and say hello.  No probs we said.  Then they rang Andy, Sue, Gordon and Dot who were moored up on the marina and within the hour we were all drinking and eating in the hotel bar having a fantastic catch up!  No excuses from anyone, just drop everything and let's go!  They are great people and we love them dearly.  

On Sunday we went looking at boats at Great Heywood marina, but as I will explain later we were just  tyre hull kicking!

Sunday afternoon was the main event ... we were meeting at the local Spoons at 15.00 for pre dinner drinks, so we dropped the dogs off at Dot and Gordon's boat where they would be nice and warm for the night.

As expected, it was a great night with a lot of catching up to do with a lot more of our boater friends.

Dot and Gordon were in full Silly hat mood ...

Actually everyone was in silly hat mood ..

Roly had his best Texan gear on...which coincidently matched Diane's recent purchased Texan boots!

We had a good turnout of 17 people ...

Me and the world famous Isle of Man TT rider, Andy ...

Sue suggested that I looked a right nob in my Xmas hat and jumper ...

Marry Xmas!

Unfortunately Di passed wind, but Sue and Lynne thought it funny ...

Once we had finished at the Spoons Team Hardcore headed off to their clubhouse, also known as The Royal Exchange.  We had picked up the doggies from the boat, so they also joined us at the pub ...

Sammie was in his element, jumping from lap to lap of his old boatie family!

It was a brilliant weekend with some top notch people.

Back to the previous blog post where we were thinking of buying a boat!  The main reason for this turnaround was because we were becoming so pissed off with trying to find somewhere to rent ... what with the dogs and us not working, no UK income and no previous rental references was making things very difficult.  Luckily we had registered with a couple of really good agents  'Belvoir' and 'Harvey Scott' ... we took the dogs into the agents with us to show them what perfect little chaps they are.  One agent in Bollington 'Michael Hart', treated us with total  contempt, explaining that they had very high standards and would likely have nothing available for us now or in the future!

As we were leaving for Stone on Saturday we had messages from both of the good agents that a couple of suitable places had come up. We had just left Macc so took a quick detour to Bollington to check out one of the places.  It looked good so we arranged to meet up with the agent the following Monday.

Meet up we did on our return on Monday and we loved it.  It is a little cottage, right in the centre of Bolly, close to shops, opposite a bakery, cafe and a pub, with the inside of the house being very nice and tidy.

It is a typical Bolly stone cottage, but very un-typically it has parking for two cars!

We applied for the cottage and got it, but we had to pay six months rent up front, which was the easieast option, so no probs there.

The cottage is un urnished apart from white goods so for the last few days we have been scouring the charity shops for furnishings etc.  A major help has been that Elaine's brother Trevor volunteers for one of the local charities and has guided us to some brilliant pieces of furniture.

We have had such fun buying all sorts of of amazing stuff ... it is going to be a very eclectic cottage!!

The only new thing we have bought new is a mattress and some pots and pans. We have virtually fitted out the cottage for a few hundred pounds ... just to think that our contents insurance back in Oz was just about $100,000!!

We have hired a van to pick up all the gear, so we move in Friday.

A new adventure in a English village begins, although I think Bolly is classed as a small town really. 

The blog will still have a tenuous canal link, as the Macclesfield canal passes right through the centre of the town and I am sure we will be meeting lots of boats as they pass through town!