Thinking about boating in 2021

 Last Sunday we were at last able to drive down to see Leo.  We last saw the boat at the end of October last year but finally our house arrest for Covid has been relaxed enough to allow us to visit the boat albeit not yet to stay overnight or go out on the cut.

This wasn't where we left Leo (the marina staff moved her in November) but we spoke to our new neighbours Colin and Bex who are fairly new to boating and even offered us a cup of tea. So I think we will get on well. Though we haven't been able to get to Leo for months, she went out for a spin in early January (thanks George) to a boatyard where the damage from last year's collision with a hire boat on the Oxford Canal has been repaired. The grey paint on the port side of the bow shows the repaired section and the boatyard (Trevethick's in Nottingham) has done an excellent job.

 We spent Sunday mainly cleaning - Helen the inside and Ian the outside. The engine started first turn of the key! Helen also put on the bedding and we put up the curtains. She looks habitable now.

From next Monday (12th April) we can stay on the boat and even go places. Though we plan to spend a couple of days on her in a week or so, we don't plan to start boating for the summer until Helen has had her second Covid jab at the beginning of May.

So, where to go? If you read this blog you will know that we have been most places and our original thoughts were to go onto the Lancaster Canal crossing the Ribble Link which we have only done once before, in 2016. However we've rethought that plan. Getting north is tricky at the moment with a breach on the Aire and Calder and another on the Trent and Mersey. Also we are suffering withdrawal symptoms from not being able to see our grandson living in Cambridge. So the revised plan is to stay in the Midlands at first and then to go down onto the River Nene and spend much of the summer on the East Anglia waterways within fairly easy reach of Cambridge.

It feels good just to sit down and do a blog posting - just like boating really.  We look forward to telling you more fairly soon now.