Moore - Bridgewater Canal

Bluebells!!  What can I say?  Wonderful.

A family reunion day today.  First of all one of David's nephews came to pick us up to take us to Runcorn to see David's eldest brother and his wife (who has just fallen down the stairs and broken a hip and a wrist).

She is doing remarkably well as she is almost 80 but determined not to let it hinder her in any way.

Later on another one of his nieces (there are 8 in this particular family) and her husband met us in the Red Lyon for supper and lots of laughs and reminiscences.  Later they came back to the boat for a nightcap before walking back home.

This lovely little chap with a butterfly about to land on it's nose is matted onto dark and then light brown card with the corners rounded off.  Brown gingham card was wrapped around a panel of pink card (again with the corners rounded) and fixed onto a white card blank.  To finish it off I added 3 pink pearl gems to the bottom right hand corner.

Above Lock 4, Lapworth, Stratford on Avon Canal

 Mr David in the rain.  We left in drizzle and ended in pouring rain.  We only did 6 1/2 miles but it was miserable and the two lift bridges were absolute pigs.  I noted that one (the lesser pig) is being looked at on 14th.  Not before time; but what about the b****** pig?

I walked into Hockley Heath in pouring rain to discover a shop selling Rolls Royce and McLaren cars, another selling swimming pools and a poxy little One Stop shop which only had the usual suspects, eg: plastic bread.  Should have stayed in the dry.

The rain stopped, so we set off again only for it to start again.  So we moored up for the rest of the day.  Snow predicted for tomorrow!!!

Only seen one other boat on the move again today.

Yellow card base, butterfly patterned paper decorated using a Martha Stewart punch down both long sides and stuck vertically down the centre.

The decoupaged topper was matted onto a die-cut doily and stuck towards the top of the card in the centre and a pink ribbon bow with a yellow rose fixed underneath with glue dots.

Gas Street, Birmingham

 This morning the Hyatt caught on fire!!!!!  Lots of fire engines.

When I went to check whether I could use the pool this afternoon I was told that it was the sauna that had blown up!!  So no swimming for the foreseeable future.  Hope we get a refund.

Fortunately no-one was in the sauna at the time and no-one in the pool area was injured

This card began with a purple card blank.  I covered part of the front with some stripy paper and then added this little chap holding a bone for his dog.  He and the dog are slightly decopaged and fixed to the card with sticky-fixers.

Watford

We have reached Watford - home of the great British Waterways - not that we could find their offices when we tried to find them several years back!!

Though we actually saw a BW man today who was checking waterlevels. He shut a gate for David so he didn't have to get off the boat again!

The clocks went forward this morning, so we were later starting today - though Spring seems to have finally sprug. It has been a glorious day - warm and sunny. Lots of folk walking through Cassio Park and fishermen every 100 yards.

Lady Capel's Bridge - she allso has two locks - one top and one bottom!

A Winnie the Pooh card can't remember where he came from but the base card was pre-printed.

Tescos, Warwick

This is what a canal looks like when there is no water - MUD. It is the pound above Lock 22.

Yesterday we had to get some water so we winded (turned the boat around) and went back to the bottom of the Cape locks where we just managed to wind again which saved us having to go up the two locks and then come back down again. After getting the water we stopped off at Kate Boats to get some coal and, hopefully, someone to look at our electrics as we are having a problem, but there was no one there to help (what a surprise!). So it was on to next door and Delta Marine. There they said they were very, very busy, but if we waited they would have a look. Three hours later a man came and looked, said it was a loose wire and charged us £42 for the privilege. We moored up outside Tesco and did a shop and as we could get the TV from the spot we moored at we decided to stay.

Today, Slowhand moored up behind us. They had returned to above the locks at The Cape which is why I hadn't seen them when I walked up to Fosse Lock on Sunday.

I have spent most of the day finishing off lots of cards that were half made. I just have to photograph them now.

This one was made from a freebie from a magazine, matted onto pink and purple card. I used 2 rows of peeloff roses along the top and bottom.

Leamington Spa

A photo of the offending lock. I walked up to it yesterday as the weather was so lovely. There was no work going on at the time but the bottom gates have been removed. There doesn't appear to be a lot of boats waiting to go through and I didn't pass Slowhand, so I don't know whether they got through on Friday or not.

There was a lot of wind and rain in the night and the towpath is full of puddles.

I took a bus ride into Rugby for something to do but came scuttling back to the boat as it is quite cold out.

Still on a birthday theme: This little fellow (bought in a charity shop) was fixed to the card with freezer twists (I put a big safety notice in with it). I started with a red card and added a strip of silver, then a piece of star paper matted onto blue paper. The No 1 was made from the silver paper and matted onto the star paper and then the blue paper and I printed the "happy birthday" and the child's name onto silver paper and matted it onto the blue.

Drawbridge 26, Hockley Heath

We have only travelled 3 3/4 miles today. Who says you have to do 9 hours? It seemed longer because we stopped twice, once to visit the fabulous bread shop at bridge 20 and then again to post some letters and buy the milk that I forgot to get earlier in Hockley Heath. We then moved under the first drawbridge and moored just before the boatyard.

This gave me the excuse to catch the bus into Stratford on Avon and check out Lakeland and the Blue Moon craft shop.


I bought a beautiful stamp of Marilyn Munro which I must use soon and lots of coloured stamp pads. I don't do nearly enough stamping.

This card was made from the cover of an exercise book. I just cut out the frame and then matted it a couple of times before sticking it to the card. Couldn't be simpler.