Getting ready to go!

Thursday 4th December to Friday 5th December 2014

After a huge, essentially unbroken sleep we woke up at a not too early time - back on our boat - and very happy to be here.
We have had a wonderful trip and been away for 3 months; finalised the situation at home in Melbourne; seen Bec in Auckland and had a fantastic time in Dallas, but there really is no better place to be than right here on the boat - well, at least for us it is the best place.

There was more washing to be done; time to go back to work; a marina invoice to sort out and pay; and Diane wanted to try the breakfast at the cafe.

Ever-ready for a cooked breakfast - 

the one at Overwater Cafe got the seal

of approval 

I spoke to the people at reception and they had our bill ready - I waited until we were seated until I opened it, but didn't need to worry - it was about what we had expected and considering the work that had been done and we were pleased with it, there were no problems.

The new wood work around the fire - a vast improvement on my
feeble efforts.

Now a bathroom down to just one toilet - we have removed the
pumpout tank and 'loo - cassette from now on

The only other thing to be done was sort out the extra few days of mooring that we had compared to what we had already paid for - almost a week.
The reply came back that there was no charge - we had had a lot of work done there; the boat had been off the mooring and out of the water for longer than that and they were happy to leave it at that - a far cry from what we could have expected at Aston Marina - if they could have been bothered to do the work in the first place.
At Overwater we have seen the better side of marina operations in all aspects and from our experiences we would definitely recommend them to anyone.

The Friday ritual of a happy Friday picture in the pub was re-activated, and so a leisurely walk into Audlem was the order of the day - we did however have to time it with the weather forecasts so as to miss the expected rain.

Outside - the smile is in anticipation of a drink

A order each at the chippy and after that was consumed we ducked into the Shroppie Fly for an ordinary mulled wine (not much better after it was warmed up) and a satisfying Guinness.

She put on a brave face after the disappointment of the mulled wine

The trek back was in reasonable sunshine until we were about half a kilometre from the end of it and the clouds were getting darker overhead.
No sooner had we stepped inside the back covered deck area than the rain started.

Nothing more needed to be done on the boat for the rest of the day - I had a bit of work to finish off and Diane relaxed after all of the work that she had done over the two days.

We were ready to move into cruising mode without delay.