The family Stone

It was pretty chilly overnight, even though the fire stayed in well. We had a fairly relaxed start to the day, and then got in the car and headed up the M1 and M6 to Stone, where we were meeting my Cheshire family. We were there a bit early, so went for a walk. 

We had a table booked at the Crown Wharf, which overlooks the basin by the Stone hire boat company. We were able to get it early and had coffee and tea before my sister and family arrived, also bringing my dad. It’s a huge pub, but we had a nice booth; the food also turned out to be very good, and excellent value. After lunch we did Christmas presents to my nieces, then went for another look at the canal.

The drive back was pretty foggy, and it was almost dark by the time we were at the marina. It had been a lovely afternoon seeing the family. 

Frosty

We have come up to the boat for a weekend of family things. We drove to London early as I was on the Breakfast shift; Adrian came for a look round the new studios then drove the rest of the way to the marine. He got there about 9am, and it was very frosty!

I came up on the train to Milton Keynes. Adrian had got the fire going and had the Eberspacher on. But the gas locker lid was frozen shut, so he hadn’t been able to put the gas on. We found some de-icer in his car and used that to unstick it. The hosepipe was also frozen, but a boater a bit further down had been filling his tank so we borrowed his. We couldn’t remember when the tank was last filled so we thought we’d better put some water in, but we didn’t want to fill it. 

At lunchtime we met a former colleague of Adrian’s for lunch at the Navigation right by the marina. This evening we are out again, meeting Catherine, Nigel, Grace and Matthew at a different pub. 

Unexpected on test

The February issue of Canal Boat is out, and includes my boat test on Unexpected by Ortomarine.