As I write, we're nearly at the end of our winter mooring. All winter moorers at Llangollen have to leave by March 31st, and so we shall soon be off. I'm always reluctant to leave; we have friends here and there's always something to do. It's good to be a member of a community for a while. Trev is ready to go, he always looks forward to the start of the cruise with great enthusiasm.
We've had quite a busy time. I went to stay with my brother and sister-in-law in Spain for a week in November. The weather was perfect and I enjoyed sitting out in the sunshine, getting a gentle tan. As I'm fair skinned, I burn very easily in the sun, but the weather was just right for me. We went to Gibraltar, and also inland to a town called Antequera. We travelled through some beautiful scenery, up to a real high point called El Torcal where the limestoone had eroded into stacked flat plated, like huge pancakes on gtop of each other. There was snow up there, and, if I hadn't lost my Hard Drive, I would be able to show you the pictures..........
That was a really annoying event. I bought an external hard drive last August, and backed up everything immediately. Then I put the hard drive in a Very Safe Place, so safe I completely forgot where. In January the hard drive on my computer packed up, and I had to have a new one. So I've lost everything on my hard drive from September to January. The only good part about it was that I had bought a three year warranty cover on it, so the repair was free. I did eventually discover where I had put the external hard drive, but when I tried to restore the data which I had saved on my external hard drive back to the omputer, it wasn't as easy as just pressing a button, and I still don't seem to have everything I had backed up. However, I'm still trying to find it all, and maybe one day I will.
We went to stay with Sheridan and Ron in Bedfordshire for Christmas, and had one of the best Christmases we've ever had. They spoilt us rotten! Their daughter and grandchildren were there, so it was a real family Christmas. Father Christmas even brought us stockings! We ate like kings, went to the pantomime, visited friends' houses and had a thoroughly good time.
At the beginning of January, we spent a week in Austria with Catharine and Mamdooh and Catharine's sister Janet. We went for the winter scenery, not for the winter sports. But Trev saw people skiing, and decided that he would like to try, so he took three days of tuition and managed to stay upright and go downhill. He enjoyed it very much and wants to go back and do some more.
We walked in the mountains, going up and down in cable cars and walking along the tops, through beautiful winter scenery. There were mountain cafes where we could sit outside covered in rugs and drink hot chocolate. The best day out for me was a horse drawn sleigh, again covered in rugs, and with liberal supplies of Schnapps. We went out into the country and up a valley to an old Alpine inn, where we had goulash soup--delicious.
The temperature was never above freezing and at night dropped down to around -12 degrees overnight. One night we put a carton of milk on the balcony outside our room. In the morning it was a solid block of ice.
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Since we got back from Austria, we've eaten with friends quite often, at their houses or on the boat, we've had friends to stay and been to stay with friends. There have been some good talks in the town, one on the history of chocolate, by a chocolatier with demonstration and tasting!
Click here for a mouthwatering look at the website
Another was an illustrated talk given by a wildlife expert on raptors, and that was really interesting.
Click here for his website
We've met a few new friends, too, boaters who are up here for their first winter. Maggie and Bernie have a car, and they took us out for Sunday lunch to a little pub near Lake Bala. It was St. David's Day, and we had delicious Welsh lamb and homemade tiramisu for under a tenner. Everyone in the pub was speaking Welsh, except us............
Trev has also nearly finished the Offa's Dyke Walk, a long distance footpath from Chepstow in the south to Prestatyn in the north,one hundred and seventy-seven miles long. He started it many years ago, when we were still running the guest house and he couldn't spare any more time. So this winter he's spent some time trying to get it finished, and now has just twelve miles left to do. In order to do it, we hired a car, and I took Trev to the start place in the morning and fetched him back afterwards. He's looking for his next project...The Thames Path is on the list.
It's been good to have had a change of pace through the winter. Although we've been busy, there's been plenty of time to do our own thing. I've read and done patchwork, as well as tried to find out more about the magic of my computer. The more I learn, the more I realise how little I know.
Now we're getting everything ready to set off in a few weeks. Jobs to be done include washing the outside of the boat and polishing the brasses, starting the engine to make sure it still works----stocking up the freezer from Gwyn the Meat in town and saying a fond farewell to all our friends. Then it's off into the blue horizon. So come back around April 8th and hopefully there will be something more to read.