Four weeks ago we had lunch in the Bistro at Aston marina and contemplated the purchase of nb Caxton. Not quite a month later and we are spending our first weekend on board familiarising ourselves with our new boat. It’s been a hectic few weeks for us because apart from clearing and cleaning Phoenix III in preparation for her sale, Sue spent a week in hospital having a pacemaker fitted.
Despite only being discharged on Thursday, Sue felt fit enough to travel on Good Friday so we packed the car and drove the fifty miles to Stone. After we arrived we spent the next hour unpacking and installing our bits and pieces, mainly bedding, towels and kitchen equipment, before making the short trip into Stone where we had lunch at the Crown and Anchor and then did a bit of food shopping in Morrisons.
We spent the rest of the evening just pottering about and generally chatting about how we would be using our new floating home, although we were briefly interrupted by a tap on the window.

Saturday arrived and we were pleased to have had a good comfortable sleep in our new bed. The shower was next to be tested, Sue can’t use it yet due to her operation but I am pleased to report that it does an excellent job. After a light breakfast we drove to Midland Chandlers at Penkridge where we bought a spare cassette for the toilet and a couple of other bits and pieces. We then drove to Sainsbury’s at Stafford where we had lunch and did some more shopping before heading off to another retail park to buy even more bits for the boat, little wonder that some say BOAT is an acronym for “Bring Out Another Thousand”! We had a late dinner, collapsed into the chairs and eventually headed for bed.
Sunday, Easter Sunday to be precise, came adorned with rough weather so Sue knocked up a couple of bacon banjos for me, no doubt trying to ensure that I was fortified for another round of retail therapy. Luckily, Easter sunday is a day when shops over 3,000 sq feet in area are not allowed to open so when we drove into Stone at 11am, nothing was open and we had to return to the boat and watch Liverpool beat Norwich as they edge their way towards their first Premier league win. We’ve just generally lazed about on board ever since, listening to the radio, reading, crocheting and knitting, well one of us has anyway.

Tomorrow is a bank holiday and in principle we should be returning home but neither of us are very keen, preferring to stay here on board Caxton.

Sue took some pictures which are posted here