Quite a lot has happened since I last posted; we've been very busy emptying and storing the contents of Rock 'n' Roll, a much more difficult task than we'd ever envisaged, the 'stuff' kept coming out, there seemed to be no end to it! We hand over to
Ann on March 1st but our
new build won't be ready until approx mid-April, so we'll need somewhere to live until then.
Our daughter had offered us her caravan and the management here at Droitwich Marina have agreed that we can moor park it near the services block until Still Rockin' is ready to rock 'n' roll! However, Sharon and family live in Scotland and our car doesn't have a towbar so plans were made to have the towbar fitted near Wolverhampton enabling us to stay for a couple of days with our son and family before continuing our journey up north.
So we packed up the car last Wednesday with bedding for the caravan (we had decided to stay in the caravan and not on the boat as soon as we returned) and everything we needed for the time away including the laptop and a few perishable items from the fridge including a newly opened but taped-up carton of milk ... you can see where I'm going now! The grocery bag containing the milk was unfortunately packed into the boot above the bag containing the computer and guess what? The milk leaked and the computer was kaput by the time we reached our son's house. We rang Apple to arrange an appointment to take it into Birmingham next week to see if it's repairable or at least to see if they can recover the hard drive - all my photos, videos and documents are on there up to about 10 days ago when the last back-up was done; I was devastated, in this day and age we really do rely very heavily on technology don't we.
After spending a lovely few days with both our offspring we hitched up the caravan and set off south at 7:30pm on Monday evening for the most horrendous journey I've ever experienced. It's been a long time since we've towed a caravan but I can remember that I felt quite happy with the experience, but not this time. It was obviously dark but also windy and very wet as we travelled down the M74, M8, M6 and M5 and as the big lorries began to overtake us we could feel the vibration through the caravan behind us and then via the car as they passed us - I was not a happy bunny at all! George did a tremendous job though keeping us all safe with his excellent driving skills and with at least 5 short stops along the way we arrived back at the marina at 04:30 on Tuesday morning - 9 hours later!
We then had to unhitch the van and manoeuvre it into position - it's got this remote 'thingy' that with the touch of a few buttons moves the caravan without any effort from us or the car - wonderful except that it took ages before we could find the 'signal' from inside the van to make it start - so there we were, very tired, in the dark, wind and rain walking round the caravan pressing the on button 'till we found the spot! By the time we'd parked up, put down the legs, got some heat into the van and got into bed it was 05:30 and a couple of hours later were awakened by people going off in their cars close by, it was time to get up and go up to Barnowl Boats to see what progress had been made whilst we were away.
Below our new aspect through the windows of our new home, taken yesterday on a beautiful frosty morning ...
Walking round to Rock 'n' Roll ...
... to finish hanging the window blinds and remove the last bits of cleaning materials...
Everything is ship-shape ...
... and Bristol fashion ...
... ready for the handover ...
... we've heard that Ann and grandson Sam will be arriving very soon ...
... and here they are ...
.. the happy new owners of narrowboat Rock 'n' Roll.
We wish Ann and husband Kev all the very best on a beautiful boat which has served us so well for the past 6 years - we wish you good roads for many years to come.
