A long trip and a short flit.

So Reader here I am again.  Back from endless cuddling, kissing and cooing over new beloved baby.  

She has quite a name to conjurer with Xanthe Olympia.  The well travelled parents spent a summer in Greece and went to the site of the first Olympic Games and Xanthe was born during this years Games in Paris. 

If you needed reminding it is winter down under when we have our summer.  I've seen heavy rain before but this was something else, almost biblical and it goes on for hours.  The the next day I was in a tee shirt.

Anyway after a bumpy start mother and baby were doing marvellously and I loved every minute, I could retire to Auckland....

Moi leaving on a jet plane

Xanthe in a swaddle, these were soon dispensed with and she liked to have her arms free.

View from Cornwall Park Auckland.

So odd to Magnolia trees in flower in the summer, I was seasonally confused all the trip.

Mitchell's adorable mother and her two sisters.  (I now count them as my honourable sisters.)

Verity's lemon tree in the garden, I LOVED having lemons on tap.

Xanthe asleep in the shade of the Camellia tree, under the blanket knitted by my mother.

Unusual Irises under planted with parsley, a novel idea.

Part of Onehunga harbour and somewhere down there Verity's house.

One Tree Hill, visible for miles around and Verity's kitchen.

One day I drove to Mission Bay, where they serve Italian Gelato in Pistachio flavour,  to die for. 
This is Rangitoto Island, you can catch a boat and walk up it, I didn't this trip.

Tulips 

Bird of Paradise plant or tree.

Kowhai Trees coming into bloom

This amused me, we are the Carr family and we DID have a herd

Verity and I at Auckland Harbour

Saying goodbye was horribly hard, luckily they are coming to visit all the family later this month.

So to celebrate my return, seemed David missed me!  We have come away on WaL for a short waft up and down.

We had several ideas, first the Ashby, not enough time so just down to Hawkesbury Junction and dinner in my favourite pub The Greyhound.  We got to Fradley on a windy day and moored up on the end of the moorings immediately before Shade House Lock, as we approached a boat left the exact spot we fancied mooring on, great.  

The next day was high winds and rain on and off.  Maybe we'll just go as far as Tamworth or even Hopwas.....

We went to the Mucky Duck pub.

The following day was rain the entire day.  Luckily we had the car so pootled off to the cinema in Tamworth, on the way home again we had supper in the Tame Otter at Hopwas so we did go there one way or another.

The next day it was blowy but brightened up nicely.  We winded at the entrance to the Coventry Canal and retraced our steps.  We'd pretty much ran out of time to get down the Coventry so inserted a detour into the end of the week of going to London instead to see the Granddaughters (And their parents of course) so we had an uneventful run back to Great Haywood and are sitting on a nice mooring in Tixel Wide, I intend to drink the champagne that's in the fridge, stretch the old legs around Shrugborough grounds and read my book.

Shrugborough Hall almost completely hidden now the trees have grown around it and the hedge is unchecked.

I am a good Boater and get off to walk ahead in Plum Pudding, plenty don't bother and just plough though.

WaL was covered, but I quite like the coloured leaves.

This went on half way though the week.

We returned in sunshine and needed our sunnies.  The gorgeous hills come into view that is the beginning of Cannock Chase and tells me we are almost home.

Look carefully and you might just make out the Sweet Chestnuts ripening, we are too early for autumn colour this time.

So that's us done for this year I feel.  Xanthe and her parents are here for a month and that takes us almost up to Christmas, we'll be doing a fake Christmas for them as in NZ its all going to the beach which of course is all mad.

So until the spring, I'll just say Au Revoir Reader.

 

I shall return, now who said that?

I thought I'd have a change of font.  Ummm, we'll see.

So David went out a biking this morning very early and reported back that there were a few spaces in Fradley.  Now I wanted to go to Fradley  because I wanted to see the Wimbledon finals and I didn't want to risk no signal.  We do have a TV on WaL, the TV system cost a small fortune as we had a split wire which meant that David could watch the cricket in one room and I could watch something else in the fold down mini TV in the bedroom.  This has never happened in the twelve years.  But way back then it was the up to date system.

Anyone want a fold down TV? 

 

I was really upset when some years ago David Lewis got the actual TV working again as I really wanted to convert the cabinet into a drinks cabinet. Now we watch TV only a bit and on either our phones or a iPad.

So back to Fradley, to secure one of the two spaces available big enough for WaL we wanted to leave straight away.

 We did at about 7am,  it's only a hop skip and a jump and we arrived, the first boat the jolly volunteer helped.  He even radioed ahead to see if there were any other moorings further through Fradley at Shade Lock which there were so we were confident of getting in. 

This is the (fairly) new marina at Fradley, I quite liked it, not to big, not a ton of facilities that we would never use, I wonder how it compares price wise...

Action shot of David winding down the paddle on his side.

What a prize Git Gap, the moorings start at the post.

We shoehorned into a gap.  Had breakfast and set off for the post office in Alrewas to return a parcel.  David knew the way on the country lanes, at one point a herd of Mamils came haring towards us, but they were a friendly lot all saying Good Morning.  We arrived in Alrewas.  Now I have to tell you something Reader, it's usually me who says this but today David said Alrewas is lovely I COULD RETIRE HERE!!!!!

I did see a lovely cottage for sale too but it's too far from those priceless Grandchildren. 

My first bike ride since last summer

We cycled into Post Office Road, couldn't see it.  I asked a lady where the post office was please, Oh it was in the Pharmacy but it's gone now.  It's now in South Fradley at the Butchers, next to Co-Op.  So Reader now you know.

The butcher served me sausages and took the parcel.

We got back to WaL.  The plan was to watch the tennis and then go to the pub for supper.

Three of these things with drivers well older than David and myself, or rather they looked much older.  Huge noisey things called "Trikes" evidently they are great fun. 

The Jam Butty was here and we couldn't resist.

Well the tennis was very exciting and we celebrated with a proper afternoon tea.

We'd spent a couple of days here so time to move.  We shifted off at 06:30, as quietly as we could drifted over to the service point for water, it took 25 minutes, David got fed up waiting by then, the tank was only on 8/10,  meanwhile I prepped the lock and was quite convinced another boat would come and I would have to turn it but luckily not.  

Reader don't bother with this water tap.  

Our mooring on the left.  The motorbikes were a bit noisy on the road, but good people watching.

David finally leaving the service and coming along as quietly as possible.  Not a soul about.

The very beginnings of Cannock Chase, a sign to me that we are nearly back.   

O

And here we are at Great Haywood, just done the last lock.

 

So Reader an early departure from cruising for now, there is a good reason.

Frequent Flyers here might remember two years ago that our dearly beloved youngest daughter and her husband have gone to live in New Zealand, the country of his birth and the place she decided to spend the Second Lockdown in when we were all cold.

In August they are expecting their first baby and our 5th Grandchild.

I am flying out to "Lindahand" as we say in our house and David is staying home to help with the school holiday child care and mind my mother.  

He also thinks he'll play golf. Ha!!

So this is all from me for now, I have to pack and cram into a case all she wants me to bring out with me...

It was that man again....

 So it's been a while since we tied up WaL in Barton Marina, due to a bit of a hectic time at home we extended the stay for a few days more.  

I'm glad to say we found the marina by road, not always an easy task, just ask David when he drove from the top of the Tardibigge Flight to meet Amanda who was at Kings Orchard Marina well north of Tamworth.  She was waiting for him to collect her, he was riding around looking for it and having a complete sense of humour failure I was on WaL at Tardibigge 40 miles away when he called me in a state of fury.  Luckily at that time I too had an iPhone and had set up sharing location, I was able to direct him.  Amanda cheered him up nicely before they reached me again.

So off we went, it was in the afternoon, Wimbledon was warming up nicely I wanted the young Italian and the young Spanish guy both to win.

We really only wanted good TV reception via the internet to watch the end of the first match and the whole of the second.  Alrewas was thought to be the place to be....

Reversing out of the pontoon.

The A38 is close-by to the canal here, bit noisy....

Very close!

Bridge 42, this wee bridge opens out onto the A38, this was a Friday afternoon when traffic was whizzing along and this caravan pulled out onto that road, I was quaking in my boots for their personal safety but they did it without a major pileup.  Rather them than me for sure.

This is the short but attractive river section of the river Trent here at Alrewas, when we got off the river at the lock a boat was in the lock, the lady crew said that people seem to be mooring up at 3pm these days, they were setting off for Mercia Marina quite some miles away, past Willington village.  I hardly liked to tell her that our style is to start early and definitely finish early.  But kindly she explained where their mooring had been in the village, we pootled along to the spot only to see that the boat we had been following had zipped in there already.

We carried on looking at snails pace but the village was completely full.  We went through lock 13 and moored up just past a noisy road bridge but that was fine, as we tidied the deck several more boats arrived and moored up too behind and in front of us.

River section looking all rivery.

It looked all calm but there was a tidy pull on the flow, nothing life endangering.

Like a mill pond.

Oh my will you just look at that!

 

We didn't have time to explore Alrewas, the tennis was disappointing as that man won again, you know the one I mean, the one I can't stand.  

Supper was delicious, Keralan creamy curry with salmon, not quite as outstanding as that restaurant in Leicester but bliming good. 

Ladies finals tomorrow.