It was a busy last few days and weeks before my planned departure for the UK. Helping to build Rianne’s deck was a big win (although it’s not completely finished, it’s usable). Then Rianne was an absolute godsend, getting my storage units emptied. There was decades of ‘stuff’ spread over 3 units; family keepsakes, sports equipment for sports I no longer do, clothes that no longer fit, just all the things that had accumulated in a crawlspace of a too-large house and were never sorted out.

So, eventually the day came and I was away.

First, the usual. The flights over went fine, a small delay from Heathrow to London meant a quadrupling of my train fare northward to the boat, but all went well in the end. It’s getting fairly predictable, I understand the systems better each year. A day of preparing the boat, filling the water, buying groceries and all the other usual tasks and then I was off again. As Rianne can’t join me until July, I have some time to get the boat back down to Goring-on-Thames (our adopted favorite English village). So, it was off to the annual Crick Boat Show. Just one day this year though, I’m not meeting any friends there and the music festival doesn’t have anyone that interested me much.

The defining memory from this early part of the trip was the heat. Several days were well over 30 and even at night it didn’t drop below 27 or so, especially on the boat. It’s a steel tube, after all! It was tough to sleep, tough to want to do almost anything other that sit in front of the fans. It lasted almost two weeks, but finally did moderate. Yay! I’m not made for that kind of weather, hence the mountain home! Sorry Phil… 🙂

I hadn’t really formulated a plan for the trip after leaving the boat show, but as I very much regretted not seeing Wendy last season I wasted no time heading to a familiar marina (for a safe spot to leave the boat), catching a train north to Birkenhead (near Liverpool), and having a wonderful visit.

Back to the boat, I’ve now headed off to Goring. I’ll be travelling almost daily so won’t see much that I haven’t seen before but wow am I looking forward to our trip to the upper end of the Thames. Stay tuned!