Rewind to Monday 5th – Thursday 8th October
Weston on Trent to Mercia Marina
It may seem strange to amalgamate the three days which mark the end of an epic odyssey, but the reason is that we didn’t cruise them!
It’s a long story, but we had a great opportunity to let my cousin Denise and husband Wyn to cruise the last leg of the journey to our winter mooring in Mercia Marina. Although they haven’t been on board for a while, but we have complete confidence in them, and we were excited that they would be bringing their labrador, Choccie, for her first narrowboat holiday. Choccie sadly has a large tumour on her lip, malignant and inoperable, but, being a labrador, she hasn’t let it slow her life down in any way 🙂
I hadn’t tasked Denise with writing a blog but let’s see whether this link to her Facebook album works – they had a ball, especially Choccie!
How to sit out a traffic jam? In style of course 🙂
We had uhhmed and aaahed about where to moor for winter – our criteria were: definitely a marina, definitely in the Midlands – within a 3 hour drive of home, definitely on a canal rather than a river, but that hardly narrows the choice! In the end we decided on Mercia – it looks fantastic with great amenities and we’ve been impressed by the experience of our blogging friends on nb Sanity Again who have moored there for a while.
Richard had agreed to meet Denise at Mercia to sort out the paperwork and give them a lift back to their car in Weston. We weren’t sure how the timing would work, but fate has a sense of humour. Indigo Dream’s cruise was delayed by an unexpected stoppage caused by a body in the canal – eeeuw! In the meantime, Richard was delayed by an accident on a dual carriageway which had to be closed for the Air Ambulance. Richard had taken Henry and Archie Beanz along for the ride, but when the traffic stopped (the road was closed), the car started to heat up so he got out and gave them a little walk along the carriageway; where he was soon joined by another greyhound from a car parked a little way behind! The road was closed for so long that Richard and the hounds set up camp on the side of the road – trust the Beanz to take centre stage 🙂
So, that’s Indigo Dream in her winter home – she’ll be there until the end of March (we will have maintenance visits and mini-cruises in-between) before we start the 2016 Odyssey, which may surpass our previous efforts – we need to hot foot it down for a convoy to the Medway towards the end of May – the nearest navigable waterway to our home in Surrey; We’ll then lurk around London so that we can join a very special event at the Olympic Park at the beginning of July. We’ll then need to hot foot it back to the Middlewich Branch of the Trent and Mersey for our planned repaint in Mid-September. It’s going to be a busy year on the water 🙂
Update on Ollie:
Against all expectation, Ollie celebrated Christmas and has seen in the New Year; he’s frail and doddery but still enjoying his life – long may it continue 🙂
Indigo Dreaming 