Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Feeling a bit like yo-yos...

Our return to the house was prompted by the need to find a new (used) car, coinciding with the scheduled loss of electricity for two days at the marina. In just a few days, we looked at innumerable cars on websites, test drove cars at two dealerships, and finally bought a bright, shiny Ford B-Max (henceforth to be called the Beemer) on Friday. Our old Honda Jazz is to be serviced and MOT'd next week, and given to a very worthy cause.

When we came back to St Albans on Tuesday, we were expecting to be here for just a couple of days. However, this grew beyond the sustainability of the few clothes and bits and pieces we'd thrown into a bag when we left the boat, so, still unsure of how long we'd be here, we returned to Yelvertoft on Saturday (the car's lovely!) and brought back more clothes - plus the perishable edibles that hadn't yet perished in the fridge. Madeline's funeral has a purple dress-code, and we used some of our time in the Rugby area to shop for purple attire for Grace. We failed.

It was convenient for Jess that we were heading north up the M1, because she needed to get to Bedford to meet up with the other two Maidens and drive off to a gig with them. Fortuitously, we were able to pick her up from  Bedford on our way back at the end of the day, too - a useful addition to our drive.

Said the Maiden headlined a music festival in nearby Redbourn on Sunday, and we joined a very good-sized audience and enjoyed a good, sunny afternoon there.



The Maidens are flying to Worms, Germany, tomorrow, to play at their Jazz & Joy festival over the weekend. They don't do Jazz - they're the Joy bit!
The shape of the next few weeks is now becoming clearer. Madeline's funeral will be on Friday, in Somerset. We'll drive down tomorrow and stay with Grace's eldest sister overnight. We'll be going back to Kantara from there, but returning to Dorothy's for her 70th birthday celebrations the following week. Returning to the boat after that, we'll be preparing for some cruising. Firstly, a week with Michelle on the Trent & Mersey and River Trent, then, after a week back at the house yet again, we'll have some cruising time to ourselves, route/destinations as yet undecided.

Watch this space.

2 comments:

  1. I expect you'll need some downtime after all this, Roger. Thinking of you both!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Val. We're on board again now, and downtime has started :-D

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