Sammie I've A Feeling We're Not In The Spinners Anymore!

When I opened the blinds this morning I thought aliens had landed next to us overnight!

It was in fact a Go-Pod, all yours for £8495 or about $17,000 AUD.

You could easily buy a real caravan for that, the strange Martian even put a clamp on the wheels to stop it getting nicked! Who in their right mind would nick that bloody thing.

He wasn't even a dwarf vertically challenged little person.   

It is still a bit cool up north so I polished half of the van to warm myself up, I could only manage the lower half because I haven't a ladder to reach the top half! 

After working up a sweat we took the dogs for a walk and dropped into our new local The Boars Head, as the title suggests its a lot quieter than the Spinners back in Bolly. 

We walked back along the Middlewood Way, I love the fact that the platform is still there. 

Elaine cooked up a yummy curry for tea it was a hybrid Indian/Thai curry and twas very nice.

Tomorrow I will polish the top half of the van as my nice neighbour has lent me a ladder.....not the Martian, we haven't seen them for hours, I think him and his Mrs have checked into a local hotel rather than sleep in that bloody thing!

Chillin.

We woke this morning to the sound of rain on the roof.

This is my first class double pod up the pointy end, Elaine sleeps down the back in economy!

We didn't have much to do today, Elaine went to the dentist to have a filling, then we went to the bank to change our address. After a quick visit to Burtie (Elaines dad) we came back to base and had a very relaxing day after the last few weeks of packing and flogging stuff.

This was our view for most of the day, it has been so lovely just watching the rain and listening to music.

Oh I should mention that Bombo the dog wrote this post.

Bollington Services Now Shut!

I hereby announce that after six months the Bollington services have now officially shut!

Over the last six months our services to boaters have  been.....Overnight accommodation, dining facilities, taxi services, ambulance services, cassette emptying, generator repairers, pet therapy, PO Box facility, lock wheeling on the Bosley Flight, bathing facilities, daily checking of unattended boats and finally accompanying lonely boaters to the pub!

Today we handed back the keys to the real estate agent, before that I took the dogs for a walk along the canal, which is just the other side of the hedge.

Then it was off to Bolly for the final check over and clean, Elaine had her final bath.

Saying goodbye to Anne, the lovely baker across the road from the house. 

Well worth a visit if you stop by Bolly

And a final farewell to the Spinners Pub.

The landlord Adam profusely thanked  me for spending all my hard earned in his pub. 

Once again if you are in Bolly drop in for a pint, no food, just a good old boozer.

Tha'ts it the Bolly experience has finished.

UK and mainland Europe beckons. 

Little Boxes

Wow yesterdays post created a bit of a stir, it was a good stir and was all taken in good humour as intended.

I will give you a quick run-down on why I did the post.

I had been having a nightmare dream about Braidbar boats,  It was a very strange dream and it woke me at 4.30am, but I was laughing to myself how absurd it had been. I quickly wrote it down and it became the basis of the post, with a little embellishment of course.

Back to today.....we did a bit of sorting and rearranging in the van, I wound the awning right out for the first time to check it out. It was all good.

We then headed back to the house in Bolly to do some final cleaning up plus do a mega wash-load while we can, well it is Monday!

Once back at the van I fixed up Elaine's bike, it sustained another puncture, so it was time for a new tube.

Elaine tested out the reclining chairs and did `some more cleaning and sorting.

It is such a great feeling to have moved out of the bricks and mortar, which we are both a bit surprised about as we thought we were ready to settle down.

We both feel so happy and content to back in a little box.   

First Night in Higher Poynton

As it was our first night on board 'The Manly Ferry' we decided to eat to celebrate the start of another adventure.

The closest pub is The Boars Head ...

The food and beer were superb, but we were more interested in what was going on with the fellow drinkers!

I could only pick out a few words of their conversation, it went something like ... 'polish, washing machine, walk around the marina, Ocado delivery, independent giant cross word, postprandial nap, lets run another load', but mostly a constant whine of  'how the fck are we ever going to win at Crick?'

Then the penny dropped - it was the Saturday night Braidbar owners club meeting!  Of course, I should have spotted they were all wearing Braidbar owners club t-shirts!

Before the meeting started they all sang a rousing rendition of 'God Save our Bruce'.

I noticed they wern't drinking beer but a cocktail of Craftmaster polish and washing powder.

The landlord loved them having a meeting at his pub as they polish everything in sight, the brasses were superb.

The meeting carried on for about an hour.  The general gist of it seemed to be that the Braidbar boat must be immaculate at all times, polished to an inch of its life and that Braidbar clothing MUST be worn at all times, including sleepwear!  They were also instructed that the Braidbar boat must stay close to its home base at Higher Poynton for the first five years, it could only then travel to further exotic waters but only with the permission of the illustrious leader Bruce.  All boats MUST have a washing machine which, without fail, was to be run every Monday (Tuesday was allowed in exceptional circumstances).  If any of the members were heard discrediting a Braidbar boat or worse making nice comments about a rival boat make, they were to be executed on the spot! 

As we left a few of them were polishing a car in the carpark.  I couldn't work out what sort of car it was as it had been converted into a replica of a Braidbar.

I should add that The Boars head pub is about 100 metres or so from the Braidbar yard at Higher Poynton and we were moored up a few hundred metres down the canal at Elm Beds caravan park.

We both had a fantastic night's sleep but I was woken at at 4.30 am by a distant chanting of 'Wax on Wax off' ....... Bruce has taught them well.

 

Bye Bye Bolly...

But firstly to yesterday, it was such a lovely hot day, we decided to go out in the sunshine, and move into the motorhome on Saturday.

Elaines brother Trevor dropped by, so I took them to Manchester airport where we could go for a nice walk, plus watch a few planes take off and land. 

I had to carry Sammie for a while as he has hurt his paw and is limping a bit.

Its a lovely spot to walk around.

And just a stones throw from the airport.

Oh look a plane.

Monarch would have to be one of England's oldest charter airlines, we used to watch them fly out of Luton in the late 60s. and throughout the 70s My old girlfriend used to work in Air Traffic Control at Luton airport, she knew all the pilots from the different airlines. One in particular was a eccentric chap called Jeremy who used to fly a Monarch Boeing 720B  in riding boots! He took us on a couple of jollys to Greece and Spain, we sat in the cockpit jump seats. Ah the good old days.

The big old A380 was off to Dubai.

It dwarfs the Ryanair Boeing 737 which in fact was a lot closer to us and taking off.

So to today, we picked up the motorhome from the farm in Bollington and we are now moored up at Higher Poynton.

We are here for a couple of weeks whilst we check everything is all working as it should be.

We have spent most of the afternoon back in the Bolly house, cleaning it up and removing the last of our bits and pieces. I don't know how Elaine makes it all disappear throughout the motorhome.

We will go back tomorrow and finish up cleaning the house, although there is no hurry as the lease doesn't expire until Wednesday. 

Its a very good feeling to be on the move again albeit only a small move.

Farewells ...

Our first farewell was to the remainder of our worldly possessions ...

Yesterday we hired a van from the wonderful people at Enterprise.  We filled it full to the brim with the final bits and pieces from the house plus some of the stuff that recently arrived from Sydney.

We then drove it all down to my mother's in Milton Keynes, where she is kindly storing some of it and also using some of it.  (We have donated our nice new TV plus the bedroom furniture to her).

My elder brother was visiting mother when we arrived at MK, so that was handy as he gave us a hand to unload!  I then took mother's old bedroom furniture to the MK tip, with my nephew, who also turned up with my Sister!  

A little later in the afternoon my favourite niece and her boyfriend popped in for a visit, along with their dog!

It was a partial family get together, which we finished up by having a Chinese takeaway!

It was a very early start this morning as we had to get the van back by 10.45 am ... we are normally just about up by then!  Consequently, the alarm went off at 5 am and we left MK at 6 am.

Funny to see a milk float doing the rounds ...

The dogs are fantastic travellers in any mode of transport and soon assumed their favourite position.....sleeping!

We had a pretty good run up the M1 and M6 ...

There was very heavy traffic around the Birmingham area, but luckily going in the opposite direction!

It was nice to get back to the slower pace of Bollington ...

We then picked up our mattress and sofa bed and donated one to charity and one to Elaine's brother, Trevor.

We made it back to Enterprise with 10 mins to spare!

In the early afternoon we dropped Bombo off to the dog groomers for a much overdue haircut.

We had to wait three hours for him to be done so we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in Elaine's brother Trev's garden!  For the first time in just over six months there was some serious heat in the sun - the last time we felt some heat was at the end of November in Spain!!  If we hadn't have gone to Spain last year it would have been 8 months since some decent warm weather ... that is a seriously long time!  You can certainly see why the poms go mental when the sun comes out!

We picked up Bombo later in the arvo.  He looked fantastic ...

The other farewell was a lot sadder.  The last of our cats, Jaffa succumbed to old age -  he was probably pretty close to twenty years old.  (He came to us as a second hand stray, so we have no idea of his actual age, just guesswork).

He had gone downhill very rapidly over the last couple of days and yesterday afternoon Trevor took him to the vet, who put him to sleep.

Trevor has been kindly caring for Jaffa for the last 15 months.  The reason for this was that Jaffa was a very vocal cat.  When we lived in Oz and on the narrowboat it wasn't a problem, but in the confines of a motorhome it was too much and Trevor very kindly took him on for us, giving him a very loving and comfortable home.

Following I have put some pics on of the dear old Jaffa, all taken back at our old house in Sydney in 2005 ...

Who are you looking at?

All three of the boys on the driveway, Geoffrey, William and Jaffa.

I will sleep anywhere!

I will sleep in the rabbit hutch!

Handsome (agile) boy.

Who said cats scare away the birds.

He was too lazy to chase them!

RIP Jaffa - back with your brothers in cat heaven xxxx