New Years Resolution on the Trent and Mersey..

Cruising Trent and Mersey Canal to Ingestre

There were some tears yesterday!  Some doubt creeping in about my decision to spend my retirement on the canals was it?  I am not sure why the tears flowed when I said goodbye to the two labradors of Wendie and Danny.. They had gone to work an hour or so before and the two grandchildren, Kiera and Niamh (pronounced Neeve) had been taken to their other granny for the day..

Vic re-assured me as we locked the door behind us and led Lucy and Meg along the road to the bus stop to start our journey back to No Problem.  Of course Christmas and the New Year had been the same as years gone by, just one heap of enjoyment with the children at the centre of everything we did..

A quiet moment as I crept down on Christmas Eve after hearing some bells ringing and Rudolf’s hoofs landing quietly on the roof, this is what I found downstairs…

I have never crept downstairs before, although all through my life I have sometimes heard the bells and hooves on the roof on Christmas Eve I have never been brave enough to do it … funnily enough this picture number in the December Album is number 24.. how odd!

But by boxing day a much busier scene..

As everyone tucks into Wendies traditional buffet.. while in the kitchen Buddy the lab takes Meg the young border collie as his girlfriend.. sleeping together is accepted in the canine world isn’t it!!..

New Year we all spent together this year, usually Vic and me babysit while the boys and girls go out, but I think they got a bit fed up with having to pay a fee of £15 just to get into the pub that they use for the rest of the year for free.

I can understand why pubs want to charge because they want to keep the street drunks out, but they should give tokens or the like to their regular customers so they can get in for free at New Years and a thankyou for their custom..

Train was busy on the way back.. the mainline from London to the Northwest was shut due to the over-running of works at Rugby.  Everything was being diverted through Birmingham.  Our route from Southampton went the other way and at Birmingham station there were people waiting 10 deep on the platforms all trying to get on our train of four coaches! 

I opted for first class travel this Christmas, well if you book up cleverly you can get it really cheap even at Christmas time, but you have to search hard for the cheap bargains.  The two dogs were quite comfortable even though the train was jam packed, thank goodness we were not in the other carriages, the dogs would have been stressed out completely as well as us! The train was so full that they were having trouble shutting the doors, people were standing in the loos as well!!  I wonder about the safety of it all sometimes.

So filled the fridge this morning, and the bread bin and veg racks and fired up the engine.. Yep no problems there, water working, fire on the go and a kettle boiling away, we pulled the pins for the first time in 2008 and headed north towards Stone. (Look out Hadar here we come!)

These two were keen to get on the move again too.. and so was I.  It was nice to realise that I have made the right decisions to retire to a narrowboat, my tears of yesterday were just goodbye tears rather than tears of doubt..  

Gonna be a bit stuck for a couple of weeks, there is a lock at Stone that has an emergency stoppage “There is a hole in it” was the answer I got when I asked why the closure, and I wasn’t in the mood to ask for a long explanation.. just wanted to get away really.. and the other way, there is a couple of locks to the south shutting next week for their winter maintenance..

Oh the title of the blog!  My New Years Resolution – To lose 2 stone in weight before 31^st July.. EEK I have just made a public announcement!.. Note to self – “Hide those chocs!”

It’s great to be back writing, and I want to thank all of you who left such wonderful comments on the last blog, It really was so very nice of you all.  I hope you all had a wonderful time over the holiday period.. and hey how about letting me know what your New Year Resolutions are then? Teehee!