hopefully back blogging

Hi everyone, long time I know but blogging from my phobe today. Were on the Llangollen at the minutem were deciding Where to go for the winter , ha. Any suggestions greatly appreciated as we were out on a limb last year in the middle of knowhere. It was all good fun trying to survive but rather bad on our backs with all the water lugging. I am now going to try and post a picture with my phone. Hope it works ! . . 10 minutes later still uploading. Calling that a fail then.

Dancing on Ice

Not exactly the correct thing to do, especially at night...I promise no drink was involved and the ice is 10 inches thick...

On the survival front, the water situation is awful, none of BW taps are available and were not near enough to a house to connect any hoses, if we didn't have the car we would have to be knocking on doors of strangers and lugging it back to the boat..we are fine though and loving it...x

ICE

Well it was a good decision to go to black Prince but a bad one to decide we could hang on a couple of days...we moored about 400yards from them which eventually proved to be 400yards too far. The ice had been around for a couple of days and we had watched one of hebalck prince boats struggle to turn round the day before so didn't feel it would be a good idea to try and reach them for fuel so walked don and had a chat with Phil then returned to the boat all eager to attempt the 400yard move for fuel.
With tim on the front with a long metal pole,the woodnes one was just sliding off the ice!! and me at h the helm we slowly prodded , hacked , smashed and bashed our way through...poor engine was all i could think. it took us an hour to travel the 400 yards but we made it, refuelled and reversed back...another hour because the ice was congregating around the propeller, not a nice noise. it was a case of forward gear to flush the ice away then reverse for about 30 seconds before it was back. Repeating this got us back to our previous spot and time for a cuppa.
Our next problem was water and Black prince was all frozen up so we ventured down to the weaver, guess what...frozen.
Luckily we have our car with us so we travelled to Claymoore and thankfully their water was running. That lasted for about 3 days then it too was frozen. next stop the boat club, yippee running water well for one day anyway then they had a burst pipe so it was turned off. What would we have done without the car as we thentravelled to Anderton but no, all off. This was now becoming rediculous and we had to start taking our water containers to the house my friend was renting and fill up there.
Our other problem has been the elsans, the weaver door was locked, double locked that is, after our first visit and the boat club didn't have running water, we did empty there and flush with a bottle of water we had in the car but trips to anderton seemed the only answer. We are very dissapointed that the facilities on the weaver were not available as we would be now left high and dry if we didn't have the car.
On a lighter note i will leave you with some pictures i took whilst enjoying the peace and quiet..

sept to dec....been busy!!

Hi everyone, sorry i havn't been around but we managed to buy a couple of houses and being reposessons the sales went through quickly so we have been busy getting them rady to rent out. One has just gon to my best friend and i hope she is very happy living there. The other will take another 6 weks or so.
Any way I need to ge up to date with whats gone on in our boating life...don't expect anything too spectacular!! LOL
SEPTEMBER....The time was spent travelling back from Grindley brook to Walton on the Bridgewater..The only happenings along the way were giving a lost dog a ride from Wrenbury to Barbridge where it's owner was meeting us and the most tremendous instant downpour I have ever seen. We were lucky as we were just approaching a bridge and managed to get under whilst we put our cover up, others that had just passed us got drowned..I mustn't laugh...
OCTOBER....We continued on the bridgewater and headed first to Thorne Marine at Stockton Heath then on to The Old No 3 close to Dunham...Time to about turn and headed to Moore to pick up thier OAK SMOKED bacon MMmmmmmmmm and then to BMBC { Bridgewater Motor Boat Club}
NOVEMBER
We spent a couple o days at the club then went onto the workbay to have facilities for a welder to fill our rear end in ..Ha you know what i mean..and do a few other jobs after which we then wandered back off the bridgewater through the tunnel and on to dutton by the woods...the dogs love it here..
The towpath was terrible, nothing but wellies. We were here quite a while due to work on the houses but eventually moved on to Walton ( BMBC MOORINGS) for just a couple of days. Now getting a bit fed up of not being in a position to venture due to house commitments, the sooner theyare finished and rented the better..
Well we left Walton a couple of days later and thankfully decided to go to Black Prince a few days earlier than normal to re fue, that was a good decision.

AUGUST and how good it was...

Well we spent our August doing quite a bit of road travelling as we have been finding and buying two properties to rent out and getting agents to show us houses on the same day was a apin and rarely happened. We seemed to be back and to every other day and it's been a pain. At the same time we have been travelling from Chirk back off the LLangollen to Barbridge as i speak. We took it slow and in fact it has been a month now since we left Chirk.
We couldn't help having a muse down the Montgomery but only went as far as the Queens head before we returned, we were on there for a week in all.
From there we went to Ellesmere, Whixhall, Grindley brook, Wrenbury and finally Barbridge. We have moved more this month thanwe have for ages and I much prefer going slower.
It has been nice to meet other liveaboard continuous cruisers who have been o the water so much longer than us and not so nice meeting one gentleman who had a go at my hubby who said " i hope your paying your council tax." I understand in one sense but everyone has the option to do what were doing but it isn't an easy option and which council would we pay it to anyway. Tim just said we have two houses also so you needn't worry.
Our animal recues have continued with cows in the water at Chirk, a calf that managed to get through a pedestrian gate at whittington and yesterday a labrador that was 7 miles from home who we gave a lift home on our boat!!!
We have also bought a motorhome which is going to come into it's own while we renovate the houses, the eventual intention is to venture over to France for a couple of months next year once work has completely finished.
I have posted a few pics, I know the water isn't clean but boys will be boys!! It was funny

Back on the water

Hi everyone, spent 5 weeks back on land mainly at the nursing home then sorting the funeral..Lovely to be back and may i say how understanding BW were. I emailed them as the boat had been at Chirk for 3 weeks and i was worried but they said it wasn't a problem.
When we got back we spent another week at Chirk as we still had running around to do but on Saturday 14th we moved to bridge 6 near The Narrowboat Inn and today the 18th we set off again and at this moment are moored above the locks at Frankton waiting to go down at lunch time tomorrow...
May i say we felt the fuel at Chirk marina was a little expensive as they used an average price... We also found that in the Chirk area other boaters mainly hirers but some not, were very fast passing us to the point that we couldn't wait to move...it was quite crazy...it was rare for a boat to slow down. We didn't shout once, that took some restraint...
Anyway, I am getting back into everything in the slow and restful world of boating again...a few legal things to sort out, house buying for rentals etc but all that should be out of the way
One other thing..never had as many visitors in my life, proper little hostess i am these days...LOL

sad

Hi everyone, Just to say I havn't been blgging as my mum took ill 3 weeks ago and sadly passed away on the 10th...We had to leave millimaize in Chirk as i was staying with mum night and day, can't settle and just want the funeral over on the 22nd to get back on the water...Mum loves water so i am sure she will join me XXX