All aboard for Halfie's Retirement Cruise!

So far it's just the two of us, but we're expecting an invasion tomorrow. David, Penny and Fergus are intending to meet us at about noon; and Adrian might come a couple of days later. So we could have a boatful - six is the usual maximum for sleeping on board.

We set off in the car after church and lunch, and called in at Jubilee on the way. There I investigated a leaking Webasto central heating header tank. I omitted to take a photo. The contents of the header tank slowly - or quickly - drain out from an unused connection at the bottom. I'll get Ally or Ben to take a photo for me, and then you can see what I'm talking about.

Having not managed to fix that one, we continued to Braunston Marina where we were expecting to find Shadow.

Er ... where was Shadow? We looked and looked, walking to the end of the first set of pontoons, and couldn't see it. Then I went to the footbridge over the entrance and found the boat on the towpath. Not terribly convenient for loading, so I brought it in to the first old wharf arm where we tied up to some convenient rings, and got the car reasonably close.

By the time we'd loaded, had something to eat, and got the stove going it was dark, so I'll do the car/bike shuffle in the morning. We should be all right here in the entrance - it's quite wide.

The only ice was at the very end of the arm. I'm anticipating a bit of freezing over tonight - we'll see.

In the morning I'll drive to Wigram's Turn with my bike in the car, park up, and cycle back to the boat.

Hooray! The "Retirement Cruise" is (almost) under way!

Apologies again for the lack of photos