Life aboard the Delta Vee

After Swanage we headed north for 5 days aboard the Delta Vee, my dad's canal boat. For most of the time, we were based at a lovely marina near a great pub (with a train that even Clara enjoyed- below). The marina had a tall bridge, a nearby potter living on his own canal boat, and a resident pair of geese.  Although larger than Sally, the boat was surprisingly small for all of us. Ben, Clara and I all managed to share the same double bed, which left me feeling that a lot of sleeping arrangements would be feasible from that point forward.



 
The weather was excellent for boating, and it was fun to see Ben learning how to work the locks. We also enjoyed walking along the tow path carrying the kids- flowers everywhere, no road noise, and a great opportunity to enjoying being in the moment. Evenings in the boat were nice too, with some good chats and good books (autism and epidemilogy for me, indian family saga for Will- yippee!). Ben had a harder time on our one city day- dad's future visits to Oxford will definitely be calmer than the one he spent with us.




We started boating with dad before Ben was born, and on our most recent trip he was a baby. Next time, we'll have two walking and talking people joining us as crew.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Onwards and Forthwards! (By Ben)

Image
This is about the day we cycled from La Rochelle to Taugon. “Onwards and forthwards” is what Ben said every time we started cycling.  *** One day during our time cycling in France, we left the train station in a city called La Rochelle. Earlier that day, we had biked from Mayenne to Laval, which we then took a train from to Nantes, and then to La Rochelle from there. That night, we camped in the city.  The next morning, we had a nice French breakfast which included a hot chocolate (or coffee), orange juice, part of a baguette, a croissant and some nice apricot jam. After that, we went to the aquarium lots of cool, marine life.  Then, after a relaxed morning , we started biking. I don’t remember much of the biking itself, but most of the days went like this: bike a bit, eat some “Saucisson”/baguette, bike some more, go shopping for food, eat lunch, bike a bit more, maybe have a snack, bike a bit more still, and find a campsite.  In this case, the campsite was in a pla...
Read more

Edinburgh (by Ben)

Image
  Our time in Scotland started with a cheer as we crossed the border from England. We had driven from Bristol to a campsite called Drummohr. It was near a city called Musselburgh where Fancy Nancy’s friends Graham and Steven live. We didn’t all actually camp at Drummohr, we “glamped” in a Harry Potter themed hexapod which is a hexagonal hut. The hut was fitted with two bunk beds and special birthday decorations for a certain someone. It had almost everything you needed, although I think it needed a sink and Clara thinks it needed hooks to hang things on. One fun thing about it was that there were lots of things that you could do with the things that were there. For example, I took a stray hook and a ledge and turned it into a phone charging station.  But we also booked a campsite because there are only four beds and five of us (because Nana Maggie was with us) and Mama slept in the tent (much rejoicing happened as she hasn’t had a quiet night in a long time).   ...
Read more

Bristol (by Clara)

Image
Nana Maggie showed us lots of nice things about Bristol. We played a lot of soccer at the playground up the road from Nana Maggie’s house. It got me back it to playing soccer and it was fun. We also saw one of the places where she volunteers. We did a lot of bus rides.  In Weston-Super Mare we rode donkeys and also a S ky High turny thing.    We went to the pub to see Eurovision. On the walk there we saw some hot air balloon mosaics. Once we got to the pub the guy at the door said that there weren’t any seats left. Then, Nana Maggie asked the guy at the door if we could sit at one of the reserved tables until the person came. We sat at “Fernanda’s” table. Fernanda never came. We enjoyed nachos at Fernanda’s table and cheered when the Bristol suspension bridge came on screen (Mama missed it because she was in the bathroom). And then, so we didn’t miss that many songs, we rushed home on the bus. If you watched Eurovision, what was your favourite song? I liked the Swiss...
Read more