Boaties!

 

Well, we finally got everything in the car and set off to get the boat. Had a wonderful 2 course lunch at the canal boat marina and could barely move afterwards. Boat is lovely, crew amazing. Tv reception is a bit dodgy unfortuately so we only saw about 10 seconds in every minute of the big footy game between England and Iceland. Poor old England, the fans will be devastated, being beaten by a little country that doesn't even have a professional league.
We did our first 5 locks this morning and didn't lose any tackle or any crew so we will chalk up a victory for that. Just having a delicious lunch aboard ncluding

Car boot sales and a room with a view

A fossick around a car boot sale is a compulsory activity in an English weekend. Not many bargains or priceless treasures to be found in the Cleveleys car boot though. We went to Rossall in the afternoon and paid a visit to the lookout, a building specially constructed for bird watchers, but providing a great view to the horizon and a huge number of wind veins that are way out in the ocean. It must have been quite a challenge constructing them.
Today we drove down the coast to Blackpool and St Annes but rain stopped play - unfortunately it looks like it could dribble a bit for the next few days. But that won't worry us hardened narrowboaters! One more sleep then off we go!

Car boot bargain hunters

Bathing belle

 two bathing belles 

Uppermill Buckley family reunion and hopping on and off the Blackpool tram

Yesterday was Buckley family day, both dead and alive. We had a lovely lunch (salmon and asparagus quiche a la Robert) with a Cloudy Bay sav blanc. Ethel is amazing for a 93 year old lady. She looks more like 73 and apart from her very poor sight she is still very fit. Susan looked really good and managed to keep going for a couple of hours, then we gave her a break by going to see the ancestors in St Chads graveyard. The graves are all big horizontal slabs, many of which were overgrown with grass, so it was a bit of mission trying to locate them, let alone read them. Rob came along too and found quite a few graves for us. We didn't get to the other graveyard I wanted to see but I'm hoping we may get there before we come home.
Today we had a really nice day tootling along on the tram which runs from Blackpool to Fleetwood. I was hoping to find some funny postcards, iconic of Blackpool, but it seems like funny postcards are out of fashion and the only ones we found were boring shots of the tower. Weather is still good, just a nice temperature, so hopefully it will continue like this for the next month.
I expect you've heard that yesterday's referendum came down with a very narrow margin in favour of leaving the EU. My cousin Susan will be upset! She was really pro staying in.

The eagles have landed... in Cleveleys

Hello family
Just letting you know that we arrived safely in Pom, pretty much on schedule. We are a bit dopey as you can appreciate but we have managed to stay awake so hopefully we will slot into the English sleep/awake time zone without too many hassles. We had a walk around Cleveleys this afternoon with Brenda and John - a lovely day, a nice temperature and a light breeze coming off the sea. Perfect. Brenda and John look really well and we are all looking forward to our holiday together. No photos on this post but hopefully there will be some pics of interesting gravestones tomorrow. Something for you to look forward to! :-) x x

In Dubai

Well we made it to Dubai without any hitches. All has gone very smoothly with our connections. Emirates has been great once again and we managed some fitful sleep on their flash seats despite quite a bit of bumpy turbulence. Now just a 7 hr flight to Manchester. It is around 6am here in Dubai and apparently already 34 degrees outside. Dubai airport is massive and we went by train to get to our departing gate. Bye for now x x