Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Been away on another planet

Taxi’s, trains, cars and busses got us off the boat and away down south. We packed some bags and took the dog. Have we got all we need? Can we carry it all? We had moved to Great Haywood Marina and filled the diesel tank. The fridge had to be emptied, turned off and defrosted before we left.
There were several good reasons for going. Ann had a hospital appointment, more house clearing and sitting in for our grand children. Their parents could then get a night out with friends. We also paid visits to friends and family, walked in the forest and saw ‘Despicable Me’ in 3D. Many items from the home were distributed among the family. That is a very hard thing to do with so much to consider.
While we were away our cooker was sold. Amazingly we had met the buyer when at Dudley. We returned the hire car having done over 300 miles on a full tank of petrol. ‘Enterprise’ took us to the station and on the way we saw that several cruise liners had arrived in port. The train was packed with many people standing in the isles with all their luggage. Made me wonder why the luggage could not be put into a dedicated coach like they would have done many years ago. We were lucky to find our reserved seats were still available for our journey, but even we had our bags on our laps!
Once back at Stafford we got a taxi to take us back to Great Haywood Marina with a bit more luggage than we had left with! Just could not face moving the boat out so we paid for another night. Even then it took several days to get back into our boating routine.
Great Haywood is a wonderful little village where we have now booked appointments at the medical centre and the dentist. Restocked the fridge and enjoyed a few quiet meals together. It is late autumn of course so we enjoyed a walk along the river with the sun shining through the golden leaves.

3 comments:

Paul (from Waterway Routes) said...

You can't put luggage in a dedicated coach because:
* it's likely to be stolen as eveyone else had to have access to the coach too
* it takes far longer at each station stop as those with luggage have to walk along the platform and can't get their luggage ready for quickly unloading as they approach their stop
* It's more likely to blow up as one of the precautions against bombs is to make the person travel close to their luggage - it won't stop suicide bombers but it will stop others.

There is a limit to the amount of luggage you can take with your on the train in the bylaws you agree to in your ticket purchase. It's rarely enforced strictly for individuals but should be for mass arrivals like yours.

Les Biggs said...

Hi Chas & Ann
Why did you empty the fridge as l would have thought you would be on an electric hook -up to keep the batteries charged.
LES

Chas and Ann said...

Hi Les, Long time no hear. Well I not happy leaving boat with power on. I have solar panels that trickle charge the batteries but not enough for the fridge. Glad to see you are alive and kicking even if your blog is not.