From Birmingham to Warwick, Maldives, York and Edinburgh.....

......but not all on the boat clearly.... ;)  It's been a full on three weeks, but we're back on board and heading towards Weedon for Christmas!

Back down the Farmer's Bridge Flight - didn't we just do this!!!

Closely followed by the Aston flight, where a contractor going the other way helpfully left all the gates open on his way up.......

So much history coming through Birmingham.  I love to imagine it bustling with working boats back in the day.

The trip out of Birmingham was quite exhausting.  The locks were fine, but the constant stopping and delving down the weedhatch was a pain in the arse :(  We've never picked up so much rubbish, not even the last time we were here.  The first lot was plastic bags, but in lock 54 on the Camphill locks, there was a dull 'WHUMPH!', followed by bits of white fluff floating to the surface.  'Er....we've picked up something major Mike....'

A sleeping bag!!!  The smile didn't stay on my face long as it took 45 minutes, a knife and pair of scissors to remove the damn thing.  Followed by several bags and a large bit of a roll of bubble wrap :(

10 minutes after the sleeping bag was removed, we picked up this black crocheted cardigan on the prop - another 10 minute delve......

 We managed to reach Catherine de Barnes just as it was getting dark.  We were due to meet my old drama teacher Isobel and her husband Neil in the pub there for a drink but I texted to say we were running a bit late.  We were even later as when we arrived Mike had the pleasure of a 50 minute call to our insurers of the flat in Edinburgh, where we'd had news that our floor joists in the living room were failing and bringing my neighbour's ceiling down below us.  It was a really great day..........
The next day we continued our way down the Grand Union towards Warwick, mooring just above the Hatton flight on Friday afternoon.  We had to be at the Saltisford Arm before noon the next day, so Ian, the manager there, could get us in before he knocked off for the day.  We left just after 8am, but with all the locks against us and not another boat in sight we started to panic halfway down that we wouldn't make it.  Even Mike began to run to and from the locks to get them set - unheard of and apologies to anyone in the vicinity experiencing strange ground vibrations that day ;)
We got there with 15 minutes to spare, and got moored and hooked up.  Wondering why we weren't getting any power to the boat, I checked the meter and it was empty.  We needed to buy a card from Ian.  Who had now left.  And wouldn't be back til Monday, and we were flying to the Maldives on Sunday.  We put a note through the Reception door with some cash in it asking him to pop a card in for us.
On Sunday we joined the great unwashed on the bus to Gatwick.  It was great, comfy seats, on time, helpful driver - no complaints.  Our flight was delayed by two hours, so Mike had time to phone Ian about the electric card for the boat.......
10 hours later.....

And relaaaaaahhhhhhhhhxxxxx............ The small but perfectly formed Komandoo.

I won't piss you off with too many shots of us enjoying the sun and warm sea while you folks at home were entertained by Storm Desmond, but here's a few snaps....

Found I was quite good at this once I got my balance :)

Waiting outside the dive centre.

We did six dives altogether, including my 100th dive, which I got a certificate from the guys for :)

All too soon it was back to Blighty :(

Our return flight was delayed by 20 minutes or so, which was fine, except it meant we missed the 18.13 train to Reading by 10 minutes and had to wait for the 19.13.  At Reading, our connection was cancelled and we had to wait 40 minutes for the next one.  We got back to the boat at 10.30pm having been travelling for 19.5 hours - we were knackered.  The boat was freezing, so cold the bed felt wet :(  We got the fire and heating on, but went to bed tucked up in our onesies.  We pinged awake at 6.30am and began to unpack and repack as we had to catch a train to York at noon.  We had a great weekend there with the Robertsons, who, as always, were the perfect hosts.  Managed to catch up with a few friends and felt all Christmassy after ice-skating and mulled wine on the Sunday evening.  Thankfully we were still a bit jetlagged so our 5.30am start on Monday wasn't such a shock and I boarded the 6.39 to Edinburgh and Mike the 6.40 to Grantham for the last week of work this year.  I caught up with my neighbour and dodgy floor/ceiling in Edinburgh - poor Neil and Janet, they've been so great about it all, really laid back and done lots of phoning around.  I took them beer and chocolate as a thank you, but am so pleased to have such good neighbours.
At mum's I caught up with my lovely brother Murray and his wife Julie, and, after lots of headscratching and heaving, we managed to fix mum's recliner chair!!

Julie and I did the brain work - 'Just which hole does the end of the spring go in??!!' (it took several tries to get this photo without either Julie or mum with their eyes shut or me with my mouth open...)

And Murray did the support work - ie. holding the chair upside down.  Mum is delighted :)

I came back to the boat on Thursday, Mike on Friday and after topping up water and shopping, we headed off again.  It felt really good to be on the move again in our lovely home, even if it was just a couple of hours to Leamington Spa!

Back on the cut and not another boat in sight :)

Having topped up our booze at Majestic Wine, we spent the night at Leamington and headed off around 11.30 on Sunday, heading for Cuttle.  It was a nice winter's day and we passed four boats in all, two of them on the Bascote locks.

Some lovely winter sun making the countryside look pretty and the shadows long!

After a night at Cuttle we headed off at 8.20am this morning.  We're now over our jetlag, but unfortunately Mike is having really bad knee problems and was awake from 3am :(  So I was dug out of my scratcher too and we set off early.  I must admit, it was rather nice coming up the flight so early, everything was very still.  It didn't get properly light until about 12 noon, but it clouded over so seemed dark.  Today is the shortest day after all!

Not much light in the sky as we stopped for water at the top of Calcutt locks.

And so we have moored at a little place called Lower Shuckburgh, just a few miles out of Braunston.  We are getting picked up at 6pm by friends Jill and Alan and getting taken to theirs for dinner :) :) :)  Tomorrow we will continue on towards Weedon, where one of our first stops will be A&E at Daventry to try and see someone about Mike's knee :(  
Meanwhile, to each and everyone of you, may I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Peacefilled New Year :) xxx