Well you have probably worked out that the boat launch did not happen at the end of June/early July as hoped. Well now for the news. Our intention was to put the boat on the Kennet and Avon canal and then travel to the Inland Waterways festival (about 3 weeks travel time). Well in order to do this it meant we needed to launch the boat sooner rather than later. To this end we obtained two launch dates and the only one that would have let us do this was the 4th August. Well after much deliberation we reluctantly decided that there was no way that the boat would be ready, Also the fact that the transport cost - utilising a local company - was way more expensive than it cost us to transport the boat from Widnes, which seemed ridiculous as we only wanted to go about 50 miles. So the thinking caps went on and we decided to look at transport companies further up country and it seemed daft to get them to come down here (Bournemouth) just to transport it 50 miles and then continue back to base empty.

So to cut a long story short (well shortish), we now have a launch date of the 18th August and the boat is being launched near Warwick, which is 50 miles or so from the festival and we will have 10 days to get there so our first trip will now be quite leisurely and not the mad panic we thought it might end up being.

We are now working very hard (well Paul is - what with me being a lady of leisure) to get all the major stuff finished on the boat, he is getting all the stuff that requires the large power tools sorted as we cannot take them with us. Also the boat still needs painting and guess what the weather has been crap, it is either raining or too windy. We really need to get this sorted in the next two weeks as Paul has got to start moving the boat from the back garden to the front boundary line.

Well as you can see it is all coming to fruition, it is really quite scary and still hard to believe, it still feels like a dream. We are really looking forward to being at the Festival again, especially as we will be on board our new home and have already received our mooring allocation. What a great place to start our new life.