Not Much Boating, All Scrubbed Up for a Wedding!!!

Well, not much boating has been done since I last posted as we were dawdling our way along the Coventry canal to Kings Orchard Marina where we'd leave Quaintrelle for a few days whilst we headed south in a car for a wedding.

The Happy Couple

 

Ooops - no.... HERE is the Happy Couple :)  My beloved English Princess, Alison Harper (now Harold!) and her fantastic husband Rich Harold.

Prior to attending the nuptials, Mike had headed off to Grantham to work leaving me in glorious isolation at Fradley Junction, but returned on the Tuesday evening - short week!  On Wednesday we boated for a little while down to the village of Fradley, where I hunted out the Co-op, went for a run and Mike did some work from the boat.  On Thursday we caught the bus into Lichfield and had a look around the town, did some shopping, walked for miles to the Co-op to collect Mike's new (correct size) waterproof!!  Both our phone batteries had died by this point so we had to find our way back to the bus station by memory.  On the canals our sense of direction is fine, we can go one way, or the other and usually the boat is pointing with her front pointy bit in the direction we should go....  On land it's another story.  Even with a Garmin to find our way we inevitably get lost and appear to be devoid of any sense of direction/navigation we've ever had.  A twenty minute cycle to a supermarket nearly always ends in a two-hour detour round the dodgy bit of a town - we never get lost in the posh bits :(
Friday we headed down to the Kings Orchard Marina.  Marina's are usually a nightmare at the best of times as they tend to be on big, flat, exposed areas of land which the wind makes a beeline for and you get blown about a fair bit.  On Friday it was also windy so we had a double nightmare.  We pulled up at the office to check in, which was easy as the wind blew us onto the side.  Then we couldn't get off again to our pontoon.  Mike ended up reversing off and backing right down the marina.  He did a brilliant job in very tricky conditions.  We got her moored up, hooked up to power and Enterprise picked us up at 1pm in a classy(?) Fiat 500.....cute, but not really Mike's cup of tea as far as cars are concerned.  Still, it got us from A to B safely and reasonably cheaply.  On Friday night we stayed with our newly land-lubbed friends David and Victoria (Ex-NB Pas Meche).  They are renting a property in Bath, and it's huge and very, very nice.  It was so good to see them and catch up.

Catching up with Middlewich Duck at his new pad.  I chose NOT to wear a hat to the wedding....

  
On Saturday, Victoria discovered a new talent for hairdressing as she blow-dried and straightened my hair, and we headed to Ali and Rich's wedding at the Moonraker Hotel on the outskirts of Trowbridge.  We ate, we drank....we drank...then we drank some more.....

We wouldn't have known anyone at the wedding apart from the Bride & Groom, but I'd been to Ali's hen-do in October where I met the gorgeous Mrs P.  It was lovely to see her again and meet her hubby Adam.

This is us with Deborah and hubby Chris.  I'd also met Debs at the hen-do and it was really nice to 'know' some people to sit and chat with.  The girls from the hen-do were such a nice bunch and it was nice to see you all again ladies!

Mike practicing his 'Snowbaby' look for Christmas.

 After a rather hung-over breakfast on Sunday, we headed back to David and Victoria's and went for some lunch at the Boat Inn in Bath, where we reminisced over passing by on the river last summer on our way to Bristol.  Mike and I then drove up to Grantham as Mike was working this week.  The big softy misses me when he's away, so he took me with him for a couple of days and while he went to work on Monday, I made use of the pool, sauna, steam room and spa in the hotel - nice :)
On Tuesday I dropped Mike off at work, drove back to Lichfield to return the car and  Enterprise dropped me back off at the marina where I filled with water, put the laundry on and braved my way out of the marina solo.  Solo and mapless.  We have Nicolson guides which are our bible of the waterways, showing us the routes and where moorings and services are.  I couldn't find ours for the Coventry for love nor money.  Having searched everywhere, including the ovens of the Heritage stove, I decided it must have blown off the boat when we were trying to manouevre around the marina last Friday.  So I'm kind of driving blind the next couple of days, but have checked my route on the maps on the CRT site.
Barney the storm was due to put in an appearance later in the afternoon on Tuesday, so I only cruised about 20 mins before I reached the visitor moorings at Huddlesford.  I was almost past a space in a line of boats when I decided to moor up, so had to reverse a bit to get in.   When I'm on my own, it's quite nice to be in a spot with other boats, and a pub nearby, just so if there's a problem there are people around.  All's been quiet though.  I decided to stay put today as it's very windy, and went for a run instead.  Tomorrow I'll head down to Fazeley Junction and pick Mike up in the evening and then we're heading to the bright lights of Birmingham for the weekend.  Then it's only a week til we head to the Maldives for 10 days - bet you can't wait to see pics of us sunning ourselves there ;)