Skin and Blisters.........

... Sisters!

Last night we went to Macclesfield railway station tommeet Elaine's sister, Julie who is spending a few days with us.

Just love the Virgin Trains dog water point on the station, only in England ...

Today we went for a stroll around Bollington and the surrounding hills.

Julie bought her dog with her, he is a lovely little dog called Teddy.  Our boys love him a lot ...

It was a bit cool but a lovely day for a walk ...

The boys had a good run around ...

Sisters again ...

How hard is it to get them all to face the camera?!!

Bloody Hard!

Having a rest, we walked for about two hours ...

Nearly back home ...

Later in the day we took a trip to Macc to see Elaine and Julie's stepdad and brother.

Once we got back to Bolly, Julie, myself and Teddy went across to the pub!  Elaine joined us for a quick one then went home to make a lovely fish pie dinner!

Soap and Ropes

Things in the Macey household are moving along nicely.  We have been in touch with our landlady and gave her notice that we are leaving the cottage in June.  It worked out quite well as she is going to sell the cottage, so we could have been homeless (again!)

It is probably the biggest problem with renting, you can never truly settle down in case the owner sells and you have to move out.  Thankfully we didn't rent for too long in Oz before getting on the property ladder.

Yesterday Elaine spent a big part of the day cooking up a new batch of smack soap ...

I took a walk this morning.  It is lovely to see the surrounding countryside greening up.  In saying that, it snowed this morning!! 

Now this baby is going nowhere, it is tied to the rings with 8 ropes!

I suppose it puts the little darlings off of setting it free ... they would be too lazy to untie it!

Stalking Boaters

We were at a loose end yesterday, actually we are at a loose end most days!

We decided to go on a mini road trip and stalk some boaters who were in the approximate area and who we haven't seen for a while.

Our first stop was our old stomping ground of Stone.  We were looking for the floating markets and thought they would be down in the centre of Stone, but no - they placed the boats up near the railway station which is a fair way from the centre of Stone!

As we walked up to the markets we passed this boat, unfortunately she didn't poke her head out so we couldn't check out how scary she was!

Just before Fullers yard we spotted the new mooring of NB Foxglove, a lovely boat which used to be moored at Aston Marina.  Roy, Claire and the boat were missing but what a lovely mooring they have - the pic doesn't do it justice, it is a lovely spot. 

We soon spotted our first target, Barry and Sandra and NB Areandare aka The Home Brew Boat.

Their blog (NB Northern Pride) was one of the first narrowboat blogs I used to follow and was one of our main inspirations for making the big trip to the UK canals.  We even met up with Barry and Sandra in Sydney back in 2009 and 2010 as they were travelling to and from NZ and  their boat.  We haven't caught up since then although we have been in touch by email and facebook.    

It was brilliant to see them again - we had a good chat and catch up.  Sandra also made us some lovely oatcakes for our lunch.

Hopefully we will catch up again when we take off in our motorhome.

Great to see you guys and all the best for the future. 

Farewell till next time.

The next victims to be stalked were Andy and Sue of NB Festine Lente, who were our winter mooring companions from Aston Marina and also really good friends.  We have been in regular contact and we have also had two holidays with them and others from the Aston Marina winter mooring gang.

We met them at Nantwich and popped down to a local pub.  The doggies weren't allowed in the pub so we sat in the garden, which was lovely and sunny but just a tad chilly.

After a couple of pints we headed back to their lovely boat for a coffee.

We will catch up with them later in the summer as they are heading off towards London and the Thames.  It is one of the spots we will definitely be heading off to in the motorhome. 

Once again it was great to catch up with such lovely people.

Talking of lovely people we need to say a huge thank you to the Aston Marina Boaters who have bought Elaine and myself a wonderful pressie of a day break in a Lovely Hotel/Spa.  We are going to have a full day of being pampered by food, drink and massages - just wonderful!

So a massive thank you to......... Dot, Gordon, Ray, Diane, Andy, Sue, Roly, Bev, Sharon and  Richard.

It is appreciated so much xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

If any other boaters would like to be stalked please leave a comment!  

(Carol and George - you are already on our stalking list !!)

Astbury Mere

How long can this glorious weather last??

It won't last much longer as today I went shopping for a new pair of shorts,  I have gone Euro and bought some red ones!

I nearly bought a new pair of Crocs but I forgot I still had a couple of pairs stashed away from last summer, so they will do for another season!

Whilst in Macc we spotted this....a bit different.  Probably not the best etiquette to take a photo of a funeral vehicle but it was just so amazing ...

Once again, it was far too nice to stay indoors, so we took the van for a quick spin to Astbury Mere which is an old sand quarry in Congleton.

Whilst Elaine lay in the sun I took the boys for a circuit of the lake ...

It is a lovely spot, which I can imagine gets a bit crowded at weekends and school holidays ...

Another great day, another happy doggie ...

On The Edge.

Once again it was another stunning sunny warm day.  It was far too nice to stay inside so we took a drive to a local beauty spot, Alderley Edge.

It is a national trust property but unlike all Australian national parks, dogs are, thankfully, welcome!

The views from the edge are magic ...

Elaine and the boys sitting on the ledge. ...

Sammie is always happy ...

Elaine was in her element tree hugging ...

We walked for a few miles through the Edge ...

We found a cave..... 

It only went in for about 50 metres.  The phone torch came in very handy! 

After our walk we went to Alderley Edge for lunch.  It is one of the UK's most sought after places to live.  It is very popular with premier league footballers and multi millionaire business types, so we fitted in well!

And who did we spot outside a cafe.....Robin Van Persie. the Manchester United striker and Dutch national team captain ...

The Daily Mail had a better pic of him though. You would have thought with all that cash his Mrs wouldn't have to wear charity shop trousers!

Not wanting to go back to the cottage on such a lovely day Elaine decided she needed a canal fix so we headed off to the Marple flight ...

We walked right to the bottom of the flight and a little way along the canal until we reached the railway viaduct ...

We headed back up the flight with Elaine fading away by lock four, so I went ahead and picked up the car.  I drove back and found the track that runs next to the lock flight so I could pick up Elaine and her mate, Bombo.

Another delightful day in the sun, long may it last!

Three Years Have Passed Already....

As they say 'time flies when you are having fun', so much so that I just noticed that we have been away from Oz for over three years!  Not bad considering we were only going away for about 18 months and weren't at all interested about going to Europe! 

I thought I would do a blog about the best bits, which is incredibly difficult as it all been rather fantastic.

I will start off with the highlights of owning the mighty NB Caxton.

This is actually quite easy as to us the highlight was London, London and London and cruising down the tidal Thames.

Some London pics ...

Sammie and I meet Kate who looked incredibly trim seeing as she was about to give birth! 

The London Pubs ...

A month in London with temps like this!

Elaine's sister, nieces and great nieces paying us a visit in Paddo basin ...

Adam and Adrian from NB Briar Rose also paid us a visit whilst in Paddo.  In fact we were having a drink with the guys when we heard the huge cheer from outside the adjoining hospital.....Kate had given birth!

Say no more....total highlight of owning Caxton........ 

Going down the tidal Thames, pic courtesy of Adam (NB Briar Rose) ...

Just brilliant ...

Next we have the Autotrail Motorhome, once again thousands of pics so just a few highlights....

Music festival in St Remy De Provence ...

Moored up on St Tropez Beach ...

Seville, having a beer and sangria and watching the world go by ...

Moored up on a beach in Portugal and swimming in the warm water ...

Next it was off to Spain for a few months in the Citroen C3 and staying in Mojacar Spain. 

The drive there and back was exciting ...

Mojacar was just superb, deserted beaches, lovely people and fantastic bars and restaurants ...

Trying to get a tanned arse!

What a place, this was our morning view from the apartment ...

Other highlights from the past three years....

Meeting Phil and Kirstie ...

Watching my favourite niece do so well in showjumping ...

Skiing in Klosters ...

Watching the mighty Man Utd, thanks to the generosity of Ray and Diane from NB Ferndale ...

Finally .......Trainspotting!!!

Obviously there were so many more highlights and lovely people we have met on out travels but I have taken over 5000 pics, so I just had a quick skim through. 

Of course, there were some bad bits but these are so outweighed by the good bits.  There are a couple that stick out...

Elaine being ill is one and the other is losing our two dear pussy cats, Geoffrey and William being the other.

The boys in France ....

  

I haven't mentioned living in the cottage in Bollington because to be quite honest it's just not as exciting as travelling.  Probably the best bit is having a pub across the road!  I have always wanted to live near a pub, so its been ticked off the bucket list! 

So hopefully we can have  another three years or more of getting out and about travelling in this wonderful part of the world.