New Year’s Resolution is to keep the blog up to date.

I will start with a short résumé of last years travels.

We were later starting out last year. This was down to me being called for jury service in Birmingham. I was later told that I would not be required but I had already delayed my start to the years cruising. As I was not going anywhere and had time on our hands while waiting for the courts to make their mind up we took advantage and bought a puppy; a Cocker- Poo.

As soon as we had finished sorting out the new puppy we set off down the all famous Tardebigge locks. For anyone who is not familiar with that flight it goes for 2 miles and just when you think you have finished it continues on the next flight and then the next! You have to do some 40 locks before you can find a sensible overnight mooring.

We continued to Worcester and then down the River Severn to Gloucester.

We spent a few weeks on the Gloucester – Sharpness canal before heading back up the mighty River Severn to Stourport and then on the Staffs & Worc's,through the BCN and on to the IWA festival at Pelsall. The run along the Curly Wurley was “interesting” I have never picked up so much rubbish on the prop in my entire boating career to date.

IWA Festival

I am not sure what I expected or why I went but I am glad that I did. I was expecting much more trade stands but the event was mainly based round the entertainment in the beer tent. I don’t think that I am in any rush to go to another one.

From there we made a very slow cruise to Stone where I had the boat out of the water for blacking and a bit of maintainece. From there we went up to Middlewich and across to the Shropshire union and then back to the Midlands again for the winter.

We travelled a total of 515 miles and worked 324 locks and moved 112 swing bridges.

No breakdowns or major issues, just routine bits of maintenance.

I did change the prop for and Axiom and that made a massive difference to the boat.

I painted the ceiling of the boat white. This was mainly to hide some of the discolouration from damp that was starting to show but it looks so much better that I wish I had done it from day one.

We also changed the seating in the boat. We changed the bed-settee for 2 swivel recliner leather chairs and then had the dinette recovered in cream leather to match. It has also helped to lighten up the inside of the boat but it does show up the muddy dog paws though but it is also wiped clean. Again we are very happy with that. We also replaced the front and rear canvases; the old ones had shrunk so much that we could not do up the zips. That lot was a fair old run on the pound, hopefully we will not have to spend any more large amounts of cash for a few years.

It has not a bad year for playing about on a boat.

What are we doing this year?

Who knows? One thing for certain is that we shall be moving around the system and I will be updating it with photos here as we go. (If I can remember how to do it)

Internet.

After the weather and batteries, internet access is the most talked about and most annoying thing to ever happen to boats.

I have been with EE for a few years now and generally found their coverage to be as good as it gets but in the last few days I have lost all internet on the Wi-Fi dongle. You rely on it so much for every day life and wow do you miss it when it is not working. After multiple and lengthy calls to EE I am still no closer to finding out if the problem lies with my equipment or their infrastructure. I have ordered some new kit from them and you never know; it may even get things working again. Lets not hold our breath though; I have been down this road before!

Well it arrived on time and behold – it worked perfectly. That’s a first for me.