Hello Hello

“I know Late again”, obviously having too much fun to be bothered to write, well we were feeling that way until the England team got knocked out of the world cup again yesterday 27/06/10, never forget it, It was Hayley’s birthday  too, “she has had better presents” !! Anyway we left you last time when we were heading back up the Severn. After the super time we had down Gloucester and Sharpness, and in Sharpness, we forgot to mention that we met a lovely couple up there who were also Norfolk Folk, infact they are so Norfolk they called their Boat Hodnedod, which is a Norfolk term for the Snail, which is obviously very apt for a slow wide beam narrowboat,I am so losing my marbles I think they were Jim and Jackie, if not I’m sure they will let me know, any way it was lovely to meet you we had a lovely dinner at the very reasonably priced Dockers Club down at Sharpness.

We were heading back to Amber Boats at Evesham Marina, “the wonderful home of our birth (well the boat’s anyway)“So we could safely leave me looking after the dog and the boat on the way back we moored at Eckington,as it had started to rain and we don’t really do rainy travelling “no need to” it was a lovely spot, “the one that we didn’t stay on our way down, as there was no shade (remember) in my last write up I told you about how it was so hot Richard and I were a little fractious in the heat, and had a tiny domestic about where to moor, well the people that saw us at the lock heatedly discussing it, we saw them in Gloucester and had a laugh about it, I know we are not the only boaters who have some heated discussions at hot locks!!.  Richard was popping home to pick up my Rheumatoid tablets,” sometimes we don’t always go home together as it is cheaper for one of us to go on the train instead of hiring a car, and having to put the boat in a Marina, however we did put the boat in Amber Boats as that is the home of our birth and we get to moor for free, they are just so lovely, and Richard wouldn’t leave me alone with the boat on the towpath,  it’s o.k for him as he is a bloke, Well while he was away I spent the Saturday Evening at the Evesham Balloon Fest, which was absolutely wonderful, the park by the River was  filled with the funfair, sideshows, live music, and the wonderful balloons, the balloons all took off, 20 of them which was quite a site, then the music carried on and later the balloons were picked up from their landing sites and bought back to the field for the spectacular balloons to music, which as the night was getting colder, it was a great treat, the music plays and all of the balloon folk play their firey gas to the music, I’m not sure how else to describe it, the music plays and they shoot their gas fires in the air in time, it was roaring, and noisy and also very warm which was just spectacular to see, then they had as a finale the most wonderful firework display again to music, it was a really super evening, so thanks Dave Thomas for taking me to it, and thankyou Evesham for such a wonderful free Balloon Festival. “you can watch it on you tube if you would like to take a glance at the spectacular event,or www.ballonfestevesham well I don’t think they show the balloons to music, they show them taking off the next morning Sunday 13^th June as they all went off

early in the morning, and flew over the boat which was another amazing sight, however with my cider headache, I missed most of them.

We took off on Monday 14^th June to

head on our next leg of our journey, “we’re heading for Oxford now I don’t know if we mentioned that”? Well we stopped off at Stratford upon Avon, it’s too lovely not to, and whilst we were there our friends from the North that we met in our first year of our travels (they took us through our first and longest tunnel the Harecastle) any way they had sent an email to say they were picking up their boat from Market Harborough and would like to meet with us somewhere along the way, so we called and arranged to meet at King’s wood Junction, however they are so quick that we met at Wooten Wawem, they joined us on our boat, they were having curry so they bought thiers over to ours, and I made a Risotto, we ate dinner and watched the second of England’s pitiful attempts to play football, “I can’t even begin to talk about it cos I just get so furious at the overweight,overpaid, ignorant gits that we call our national team” so I’ll leave it at that, The next morning we said bye to Ian & Anne and Steve and Joan, and said we would meet them when they were on the way back, so we had a couple of days polishing and doing boatey stuff enjoying the sunshine and chatting with fellow boaters, it really is the best summer we have spent on the boat so far, the weather has been terrific, after the previous two summers being “how could I put it absolutely  Sh#**e” well we were getting on again as we do when I had a call from our most avid reader Carole and her hubby Graham who have been following our blog from the beginning June 2008 well even before that I started writing, anyway they have now purchased their own boat and are starting to live the life, well Grahame is but Carole is only a young thing!! and still works but joins hubby for weekends and holidays, which she was doing when they called us to let us know they were out travelling and could we meet up, well how could we not, the Northern folk Ian, Anne, Steve and Joan, met us back at Kingswood Junction on the Monday 21^st

, which in the morning Richard awoke with a swollen eye and had to seek medical attention, so we went to the Lapworth doctors surgery, where they told Richard he had had some kind of bite, he got fixed up with a course of Antihistamine tablets, as we were near the railway station in Lapworth I said I would go shopping, so I hopped on a train and went to visit Joe and Jayne in Tamworth as it was only a hop, skip and a jump away. Richards eye was cleared as quick as it started so when the Northern crew came back, to Kingswood(Lapworth) he was fine and we spent another evening chatting,  the next Tuesday day we breasted up to their narrowboat to do the 21 locks of the Hatton flight, which makes it a whole lot easier to do when you have another boats crew to help you with the locks, the weather was absolutely boiling again, so as usual, “the mad dogs and us English men/women, were out doing the locks in the midday sun” but a whole lot quicker thanks to that lot, see you when we come to Blackpool guys, well we are going over to see Ian and Anne’s boat as they love doing it so much, and Ian retires next year they have bought their own which is nb.artu but as this holiday was already booked they carried on with it.

. Whilst they carried on their journey back to Market Harborough we had booked into the Saltisford Arm in Warwick, as we were going back to King’s Lynn for the Weekend, but I had forgotten that we were seeing Carole and Grahame, anyway we got to the Saltisford arm absolutely Knackered, well I was, what with the heat and the 21 Locks we had just worked, The bloke that runs the marina at Saltisford was shouting moor up the top there, there is someone up there that knows you, I thought nothing of it as I wasn’t sure quite what he had said and I just smiled and said “righto as you do!!”, so we moored up, I just took my clothes off and lay on top of the bed, feeling done in, and then it clicked what the bloke had shouted I remembered that we were meeting Carole and Grahame, so I called her, she and Grahame were in the pub across the way, so we popped over to meet them, I didn’t know who to look for but she recognised me from the pictures on our blog, “aahh she made me feel like J.K  Rowling, the great author” she has read and followed all of our tales for the last two years and for her to see us and the boat was like a book signing at W.H.Smith” well I hope it was !!  Carole had lots of questions to ask and we hope we were able to answer them all for her and convince her that it is a wonderful life, she has a super little puppy and it is taking to the life really well, so to Carole and Grahame on Nb.Qoi (as in Carpe) good luck with the narrowboat and keep reading us. anyway another excuse for not writing was that Carole was not home to read it so I thought that was a good skive anyway she is back now so Carole this is for you, don’t work too hard x. We went home to King’s Lynn for the weekend and had a great time as Linda has got her swimming pool up and running so we had a pool party barbecue, and another sorrowfull excuse that is an England match to endure ” No I’m not even going to talk about it, you know what happened”. Came back on Monday and got ready to carry on this week’s travels, as now I am up to date today is 30^th June and I was shamed in to writing

 this piece by another of our very avid readers (Andy Lowe) now he has been following us since last year when  he helped us on the Audlem flight, on the shroppie , he was really helpful and spends his holidays from work, helping out boaters at the locks, see the photo’s in the miscellaneous section in the gallery, well he called to check where we were and we were just below the flight of locks that Andrew has holidayed at this year, he joined us for a coffee after his days locking and kindly pointed out that my last blog entry was the 7^th of June and now it was the 29^th and quite

honestly wasn’t good enough, so here I am writing this catching up, it would be so much easier I’m sure if I was writing a piece for the Mail on Sunday (other Sunday papers are available) or a magazine and getting paid for it, because like I have said before I have created this monster and now I am bound to keep it alive for our readers, but I’m really glad there are people out there enjoying it, and while you do I will, so don’t forget to send me contact’s and let me know what you think, and I really am not going to let things go for so long, as I forget things and then you lot miss out, so until the next time, I will bid you a happy week or two maybe !!

Lots of Love

Chrissie & Richard & Rio x x x