A day with Marianne and Gary

Today we are off to Gloucester to spend the day with Marianne and Gary. Ian and I started the day with a rather windy walk in through the fields near Chris’s house and then we were underway soon after 9am. We found our way to the bridge over the canal near Marianne and Gary’s cabin just before 11am and Marianne came and met us there. The wind had settled and it was a cold but fine day so she and Gary had decided that we could go for a cruise along the canal in their canal boat. Their cabin is very rustic – running water via a hose from the water tanks on the canal boat, electricity from solar panels and back up batteries and - at the moment - no shower and a camping loo for the toilet – but the setting is beautiful. There were a couple of swans cruising up the canal and the view from their dining room windows is very idyllic. Marianne has named one of the swans Ears, because it has pink ears, and it is tame enough for her to stroke its neck. She gives them seeds and oats to eat which they seem to really enjoy. Just over the canal you can see the River Severn and the countryside of Wales beyond that. We didn’t spend much time at the cabin before hopping onto the canal boat and heading downstream. We stopped at the first bridge to fill up the water tanks and use the toilets – there are showers here so this is where Marianne and Gary come when they want a shower rather than a bucket bath at their house. The bridges

all need to swing open when the canal boats come through so once we were ready to move on we called the bridge operator and he let us on our way. There are a lot of permanenet moorings on the canal and you can see which boats are used as a permanent home and which ones are their for holiday use. The boats vary greatly, from being a reasonable size and very luxurious looking to very old and ramshackle. It was a very peaceful and scenic ride along the canal. After going through another 3 bridges we stopped in a little village for lunch. The pub was full on this Sunday afternoon so we went into the café next door which was also fairly full but had room for us. Unfortunately another group of 8 people had arrived and ordered food just before us so it took an hour for our lunch to arrive – and we were starting to get a bit worried about the time as the bridge operators finish at 4pm so after that time

there is no getting back along the canal to the cabin. As it was we managed to quickly eat lunch, get back to the boat and make it through the last bridge at 3:55 – although the bridge operator was not happy with our lateness – I guess bridges operating until 4 means they usually pack up before then! We got back to the cabin just before the wind picked up again which was lucky as Marianne said it is a bit tricky turning and parking the boat if it is really windy. We retreated inside where Gary got the fire going and we relaxed with hot drinks and yummy home made raw chocolate cake. It was soon dark outside although the swans returned just on dusk so Lauren and Marianne headed out to give them some food and Lauren was able to stroke Ears. At 6pm we said our fond farewells, it has been so wonderful to spend a bit more time with Marianne and Gary, and headed into Oxford to find the pub we had booked rooms at for the night. Marianne has promised that next time we visit she will have a shower and eco toilet and the canal boat will be all renovated ready for us to head off on a canal holiday. The canal waterways are so extensive in England – you could spend months travelling around on them. Sounds like a perfect holiday! We had a few issues with the GPS getting us to our accommodation as it kept wanting to take us the wrong way down one way streets or along pedestrian access malls and finally Ian stopped the car as close to the pub/hotel as he could and Brianna and I walked down the mall to find it. The very friendly girl on reception gave us directions to the multi storey car park out the back where we could park and Brianna and I walked round there to meet Ian and Lauren. We were a bit concerned about leaving the car there as there seemed to be a lot of youths hanging around and we could here cars doing burnouts in the upper levels but the girls on reception assured us they had never had any problems with cars being left there overnight. The restaurant at the pub/hotel was closed on Sunday night so it was a good thing we had had a very late lunch. We wandered down the shopping mall – everything closed and again lots of groups of people hanging around – to Tescos which was still open and bought some sushi and sandwiches for tea. On our way back to the pub/hotel we saw a soup kitchen set up in the mall which was obviously why there were so many people apparently aimlessly hanging around before. We were going to have a drink at the pub but it was empty so we decided to just have a picnic tea in the girl’s room while watching another Harry Potter movie – the Goblet of Fire – before heading to bed. The rooms were rather old with creaking floors, lumpy mattress and ours had a shower that needed to be hand held as it didn’t fit into the fixture correctly. But we have stayed in worse places over the years so will survive a night here!