Friday 12th to 20th August

Spent our first day back home, (as we've been on the boat for so long now I tend to refer to it as home), sorting out, tidying and doing washing. On the Saturday we travelled to Portsmouth for my cousins 30th wedding anniversary party, which was a very busy active party with games and competitions all day. We managed to take in the one man show on the stage telling the story of Charles Darwin before we had to leave. As we were taking Harry back to the boat for a few days holiday he was at the party and was enlisted by the performer to help him on stage and caused quite a few laughs in the process. Sunday we started off towards Gloucester, first stop was Saul Junction where our friends Rosemary and Travers used to farm. The farm house is still there but the field nearest the farm is now Saul Marina. By the end of the day we had gone back to where we started and to the car as Margaret needed it on Monday the next day as she had to drive to Kent for a follow up check up on her ear op. Harry and I pottered about and ended up right back in Sharpness for another meal in the Dockers Club where we were joined by Margaret at about 8.30 pm. During the day we were passed by the first of 5 tall ships that were going up to Gloucester for the tall ships festival over the bank holiday weekend.

Tuesday after I found a final parking spot for the car until end of Sept. We set off once again for Gloucester and the River Severn and arrived about 3.45pm mooring in the dock near the British Waterways museum, with the engine on 243 hours since we started in April that equates to about 360 miles travelled. Wednesday Sue and Clive left for the River Avon, as we are going to be a few days behind them now due to visitors we said our farewells, though we may meet up again. We took Harry to the Royal Gloucesters museum by which time Claire had arrived with Luke as it was change over day. We all went to the Waterways museum before Claire left for tea with her Mum in Bristol. Thursday it rained most of the day so we stayed put and went food shopping picking up a DVD and popcorn as requested by Luke. It cleared later so Luke and I did a few Geocache's succeeding on 2 out of 4.