Home for the Weekend

Thursday 17th to Sunday 20th October, 2013 at King's Bromley Marina.
We are going home this weekend to have the walnut tree in the garden "reduced". It is now so large that it is making the whole garden dark. It has been reduced twice already, the last time only a couple of years ago, but it continues to grow by leaps and bounds.
On MM this morning, the light on the trees at dawn was magic and promised a fine day (not as forecast!).

We had booked MM into King's Bromley Marina, where she stayed for a few days last month on the way down. It was only a very short cruise of a couple of miles and one lock, so we arrived early. The weather was pleasant with no sign of the forecast rain.
At the marina, we filled MM with diesel and then moved her round to her temporary mooring, just a few spaces away from where she was last time.

Having secured MM, we took a taxi to the local railway station at Lichfield and then a train home.
Today: 1 Mile, 1 lock and 2.9 hours.
Trip: 566 miles, 351 locks and 450.4 hours.

On Sunday 20th, we drove up north by car. Our 2013 cruise will end this week and we will need the car on Thursday to take home all those items which need to come off the boat for the winter.
We had an easy journey up, but it did feel strange to be travelling at 70mph!

From the car, we saw canals and locks that we now know extremely well but it is almost impossible to relate the two; glimpses of canals from the motorway at 70mph is a world apart from cruising gently along at 3mph in the countryside.
At King's Bromley Marina, we unloaded on to MM the few things that we had brought up with us and then continued on by car to Aston Marina. About 30 minutes by car but two good days cruising by MM! Aston Marina looked at lovely as before and it was pleasing indeed to be greeted cheerily by name by Alex, the Marina Manager.
R checked the details for our arrival on Thursday with Alex and then we went to the Bistro for tea, coffee and a pair of toasted teacakes. Yummy! Over tea, we spotted an unusual boat on the other side of the marina which is almost certainly nb "Whitefield", an extremely unconventional boat that featured in Canal Boat Magazine a few years ago. When we get back on Thursday, we will walk round and take a closer look.

A taxi took us to Stone railway station to catch the train back to Lichfield.

This was the last train journey of our 2013 trip and, true to form, it arrived exactly on time. We have had the most astonishing experience with trains this summer - they have all been on time to the minute (with the sole exception of one that the internet timetable had shown but in reality didn't actually exist!). 
At Lichfield, another taxi took us back to King's Bromley and MM. We arrived just before 6:00pm, far too late to go anywhere tonight, so we decided to stay put in the marina for the night.
And so to bed by the light of a just-past-full moon.