6th - 28th Sept

Another long gap - result of poor signal, and being away.  We spent a couple of days earlier in the month visiting Stoke Bruerne, to look at the excellent canal museum,

Stoke Bruerne

and then returned to Gayton Junction, where we enjoyed seeing Denise and Rick (but forgot to take a picture!)  We also had a VIP overnight guest, namely Sam, aged 4 years, doing his first solo sleepover without big brother Joseph, who was away at a Beavers camp.

Sam with his suitcase full of toys

The middle part of the month was taken up by a trip to France to visit Alex, Guillaume and Louis in Vannes -

Alex and Louis

Guillaume's foolproof  barbecue-lighting technique

this involved two different types of boating for us, on the car ferry, and also an outing on A&G's boat, to picnic on an island in the Golfe de Morbihan.

Roger surrounded by more water than normal

On our return we headed immediately to Leeds to celebrate Robert's 30th birthday, and to see David, Lizzie and James.

Birthday boy Rob with Mum

Now we're back on Vincent Joseph, and - WOO-HOO - we're on the River Nene!  The 17 locks down into Northampton centre were peacefully rural, and we left the canal system with some trepidation to emerge on to the river, which thankfully is flowing very gently at this point. We plan to spend a couple of weeks cruising to Peterborough and possibly beyond - more updates as and when signal allows.

26th August to 5th Sept

Long gap since our last post, mainly because we haven't been doing anything in particular!  Vincent Joseph is still moored at Norton Junction in a lovely location overlooking fields, and we've been enjoying the glorious weather, waking to misty mornings, baking in the midday heat and watching the swallows skimming over the water in the evenings.  Not a bad life ....

Jean and Barbara

Peter and Roger

 We have also been attending to various bits of business while within reach of Leamington and Coventry, met up with family and friends, and had a great day out with Joseph and Samuel at the Cotswold Wildlife Park.

Roof-top wood box, still awaiting cover

Roger, Samuel and Joseph

 AND Roger spent a couple of days constructing a huge roof-top box to hold all our winter firewood.







Unbelievably, we celebrated the one year anniversary of our move to the boat on 28th August - we have enjoyed life aboard so much that we've decided to do another year, and have rented the house out to new tenants until September 2014 [a decision which may come to seem misguided come December ice and snow, but too late now!] Giving ourselves another year afloat will also allow us to travel to a few more places which we haven't managed this season.   (See Miles and Locks and Things for technical details)

We plan to move on down the Grand Union today, to Gayton Junction, where we will branch off through Northampton and on to the River Nene.  However, we are going to France for a week mid-September, so we shall postpone the Fens adventure until our return.