No, not a baby! Vivien and Ray's new and much longer narrow boat! 10ft longer than their previous 'home'! They both arranged a two week holiday to cruise their new narrow boat back to Ely, which sounds simple, especially as Ray is a very experienced narrow boat 'king', but their journey back was far from simple!
The shenanigans, stress and upheaval of getting their boat back from where they purchased it from, has been totally insane. Nearly everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong and lots of it I can't divulge, due to personal reasons. Just one example – they arrived at a lock, to discover it wasn't working and the part required (being shipped from abroad) would not be arriving for a good few days! So they were stuck and on top of this Vivien was due back to work! Lifts had to be arranged with a friend from Ely and all kinds of stuff going on! If I wrote everything that went on, it would take hours!!! The lock got mended earlier than expected on Friday and it was all systems go to get back to Ely!
FINALLY, they arrived back in Ely around 4.15pm today! I arrived to greet them and help them move a few items from the old narrow boat to the new one. Poor Vivien's back was border line dodgy, after the many locks they have had to deal with on route, so I helped Ray carry the biggest item that needed moving. Fabulous boat and far more spacious then their previous one. Vivien and I then walked to get an indian take-away, came back and all three of us sat and ate this on the outside section of the boat – lovely! A Great Crested Grebe and Mute Swans were swimming close to the boat, which was really nice.
Left at 8.30pm and when nearly home, I discovered the Hardwick roundabout was closed!!! The chaos of cars and lorries trying to turn round in the road was totally crazy!!! Took a detour inland, didn't know where I was, but ended up driving towards East Winch, then to Leziate and via Bawsey home! Added another 10 miles to the journey! Oh well!
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There has not been much bird news from me over the last couple of weeks, as there has been lots of stuff going on, which I can't go into. Was in the hairdressers this morning. Booked my car service MOT and ordered a couple of new tyres – all in preparation for my Shetland trip, which isn't too far away now! Still not sorted new camera gear out, can't decide! Whichever set up I choose, it all costs serious dosh and nothing is in stock anyway! On holiday from Saturday 14th August for a week, when I will be popping over to Wex in Norwich! Whatever I end up buying, I don't want anything much heavier than I already have, I'm not getting any younger! Can't be doing with carrying heavy lenses around!
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