Bedford.. We made it and welcomed visitors

Today – Moored Cardington Lock, River Great Ouse
Sun 20th – Bedford to Nr Cardington Lock, 1 mile, 1 lock
Sat 19th – Cardington Lock to Priory Marina Bedford, 1 mile, 1 lock
Fri 18th – Moored Nr Cardington Lock

Phew!.. what a weekend we have had!

My life with Vic and Lucy is usually very quiet, with one glorious day running into another, sometimes not even knowing what day of the week it is.  This weekend was very hectic by our standards..

We met Wendie and the family at Priory Marina on Saturday to pick up her two dogs, George and the new addition to their household, young Tilly..

George always has a holiday with us every year, he is in the front of the pic here, he looks forward to it always, and gets as excited as a kid when he is told that he is off to “Sue’s boat”.. Tilly, a gorgeous, cuddly choc lab, is just under 5 months old… oh dear, everything was just too much for her to take in!   You can just about see her by Wendie, I’ll take more pics later..

A smashing Marina this, and my 17 quid for joining GOBA at the beginning of the season certainly paid off as GOBA members get a free overnight mooring here instead of having to pay the �10 overnight mooring fee for visiting boats.  On Sunday morning we all took the dogs to the nearby lake and found a handy place to teach Tilly how to swim… well compulsory for a holiday on NP!

An ideal place was found on the lake, just a bit of ‘beach’ into the lake just like being at the seaside with no sudden drop.. I threw the stick in for Lucy to fetch, knowing Tilly would follow.  I had seen a few weeks ago when I went ‘dan saff’ that Tilly just loved the water in the kids paddling pool, wanting to join in there much to the annoyance of the grandchildren!   Anyway, in she went after Lucy, wanting to play… I threw the stick a little further the next time, then for the third chuck I threw it out far enough that Tilly lost the ground underneath her… she sank!!!.. We all held our breath, then after what seemed an age, up came her head and she SWAM back to the shore..

So that is that job done!!

After a fabulous short visit by the family, this time to deliver dogs for their annual hols,  I had the pleasure of welcoming aboard a couple of my regular readers of the blog who live in the area.. John and Les.. I really don’t know how they managed to fit on NP at that time.. Visits from two grandchildren wreck a narrowboat within 5 minutes!   Plus there was bedding everywhere from the night before, bags and tins of dog food pilled in a heap waiting to be stowed away, extra towels for wet dogs strewn around the place.. NP was in total disarray! But we all managed to find a bit of space and had a really great time chatting and exchanging views on the waterways.  I really enjoyed.. Here is John helping us through Cardington Lock, no electrics on because they had been vandalised the night before, so we shared between the three of us the 200 turns necessary to put the guillotine gate up, and the same again to put it down!

John has his own boat, but still working himself for now, has a mooring in the new Wigram Turn Marina at Napton junction.  John tells me that there is plenty of space there, and from the mags that Les fetched for me (thanks Les, I have read a couple this morning from cover to cover! ) there is a special offer on for moorings if you book one before the end of this month.

Les, his blog is here,  is waiting to sell his house before going on to purchase a boat.  I have the feeling that when Les does sell his house he will do as we did and buy second hand.. I got the feeling Les wants to get out here and get on with this wonderful way of life

Thanks for your company for a couple of hours you two .. enjoyed.

So with a boat in total chaos, we left the Marina late on Sunday night to return to the GOBA moorings just outside Bedford central.. today was washing and generally trying to put NP back to normal day.. and with piles of washing everywhere and still NP not ship shape a voice “Hello” … I welcomed aboard Paul Balmer, another reader of this Blog..

Paul had walked all the way from Bedford to try find us, and very nearly gave up when at last he had spotted the Burgundy and blue narrowboat moored.. Again we managed to find some space in the bedlam to sit a while chat away.  Paul crewed for Andrew Denny yesterday on Granny Buttons as Andrew moved from Portishead to Sharpness, ie, up the Severn estuary.. I heard the whole story!.. A really nice couple of hours in Paul’s company, thanks Paul

So there you go…

Phew!.. what a weekend we have had!