To our family, friends and followers! We hope you have had a lovely relaxing Christmas and are ready for the year ahead! Sadly, our Christmas did not go as planned! We both unfortunately came down with norovirus two days before Christmas and both felt absolutely awful! To top it all off, Katie fell on Christmas…

Hurrah, we have made it to the marina and will be back at Derby tomorrow. Thank you all for following our journey, your comments and good wishes are always appreciated. We will be back again in January!!

Wow, Birmingham was just amazing! We arrived in Brum on Tuesday 3rd December after a gruelling two days of travelling through some of the roughest areas we have seen – even worse than parts of the Rochdale Canal! The below picture was taken at a CRT point where we were hoping to fill up with…

Stratford upon Avon was absolutely beautiful. We managed to moor up right in the basin, which is in the centre of the town and amongst all the beautiful Christmas decorations. There were lots and lots of lovely independent shops for us to browse and we also treated ourselves to a lovely Thai meal. I also…

Luckily we have had no further mechanical problems and have been able to progress our journey onwards towards Stratford Upon Avon before we turn round and head back towards the Midlands for Christmas. We were also fortunate enough to finally find a marine electrical engineer to help us sort out the electrical issues we have…

I’ve taken this blog over from Jo to speak of the trials and tribulations that we have experienced recently and the problems faced in fixing them. This one may be a bit mechanically nerdy but some (Jimmy Mason) will love it I’m sure! Since Jo’s last blog we had a problem, whilst in Braunston, with…

Yes! we have made it to Braunston in good time and past the locks that will be shut for the winter stoppages. We have also done Blisworth tunnel which we did with Katie, Ryan and Rask and we only had one small bump right at the end – we passed three boats in the tunnel…

Quite literary! Another thing we are having to get used to is the CRT winter stoppages and, more importantly, planning to avoid them so that we don’t get stuck! Each year during the winter months, the CRT closes certain navigations to carry out essential planned repairs and maintenance work. Many boaters choose to find winter…

I think we can safely say that the warm weather is over for the year and Paul and I are now having to adapt to living in a boat in a much harsher environment. The tow paths are very quickly becoming muddy and treacherous and our winter clothing and boots are out at the ready….

Huarrraah! We are at long last back on our travels after a four week hiatus and, not before time, as both Paul and I were starting to get settled into the easier way of life in a marina. We left Packet Boat Marina around 11am today and bid farewell to our neighbours Lynn and Steve…