Crick fatigue

Phew! That's the Crick Boat Show over for another year. I haven't blogged for a while, not because of lack of signal but because the days have been long; we have been entertaining guests in the evening and I've been too whacked out to sit in front of the computer for an hour or so composing each new chunk of this stuff.

There's been a lot happening over the last few days but, even now, there isn't enough time to detail it all. I'll just mention a few of the people we met at Crick.

It was really good to see Del and Al of Derwent6 over for a day's visit. We saw Adam and Adrian (Briar Rose); Neil and Kath (Herbie); Andy and Helen (Wandering Bark and The Jam Butty) and we met Barry and Sandra of Areandare (the homebrew boat) for the first time. Now there's a couple it's impossible not to like - they are such good company. We also saw many fellow members of the Boaters' Christian Fellowship, of course. We were there to help run the BCF stand in its usual place in the Kingfisher Marquee.

We did get some time off to wander round the show site; I bought new firebricks for the stove; a new Nicholson's and some oil. We looked round only one boat, being put off by the need to book (and the fact that we're not really looking for a new boat anyway).

It just so happens that the boat we looked at went on to win the "best boat" accolade (I think I'm right in saying that). We looked round Ampere by Wharf House Narrowboats, which was voted third favourite boat (thanks to Adam for correcting me).

This year I managed to get to three of the seminars: The Blind Boater (Tracey Clarke); Floating Business (Andy and Helen, Barry and Sandra and Sarah Henshaw); and Boat Maintenance (Mark Langley and Rupert Smedley from Waterways World magazine). All three were very good, certainly beating aimlessly wandering round the show site!

On Sunday Jan and I went to the beer tent for the Hazel O'Connor gig, bumping into Andy and Helen and Barry and Sandra straight away. The venue was packed; we joined the crowd outside but with a good view of the stage.

It's not really my music, but Hazel O'Connor gave an energetic performance.

Gosh, the time has run away from me yet again. Just to say that we're now at Foxton with Adrian and Chris (Essence).