Grand Union - Grove Church to Leighton Buzzard & Back

May Bank Holiday Monday dawned bright but very breezy. If it had just been us two we would have abandoned boat moving plans and gone for a brisk walk instead, but we’d arranged for Karen, Andrew and the kids to come with us, so we reckoned that with extra crew it wouldn’t be that bad. As it turned out it was fine. There were a couple of places where we had to use everyone to push off, but we arrived at Grove without any major worries.

On Tuesday evening Dave’s sister Kate came for a visit. She was to be our first overnight guest and would be the guinea pig for our new sofa. Frankie & Harry were coming over for tea as well and they all managed to arrive at once. A very happy evening,

We took Kate for a little boat trip on Wednesday; down one lock, onto Leighton Buzzard visitor moorings for lunch and a wander round, then back up to Grove.

We had an empty and fill up at the sanitary point, just like being back in Ken!

Kate went home on Thursday morning, it was lovely having her to stay, and it was good to have someone else’s take on things. After we’d waved goodbye Dave carried on fitting out the engine room and in the afternoon we both had a bath. Talk about luxury! It took a long time to fill but it was worth it.

On Friday morning we shut Legend up again and drove down to Karen’s. As soon as we got there Dave dived into her shed and dug out an exhaust manifold for Poubelle. Two hours later it was fitted and we could drive her around without frightening the horses. Dave scrubbed his hands and we shot off to Mum & Dad’s for lunch. This wasn’t just a social visit; we were stopping with them for the night and travelling down to Poole on Saturday morning for Ann-Marie’s cousin Amber’s marriage to Allan. It was a brilliant wedding; a very happy couple and lots of equally happy guests.

Allan is Danish, so we had a few Viking traditions thrown into the reception; they seemed to be mostly about shouting “Skol!” and everyone kissing the bride or groom.

By the time we got home it was getting dark, but we came bearing gifts; Mum had lent us a shopping trolley to see if it was any use to us, (we’d already filled it with firewood from Karen’s) and we’d scrounged a spin-dryer off them as well. Dave’s going to make a board to fit over the end of the bath that it can stand on. We don’t mind hand washing, it’s wringing stuff out that’s hard work; a spin dryer will only take a couple of pence worth of genny juice.

What’s not to like?