An excellent weekend

25th to 28th September

It's been a very good weekend, with a lot of good news and just two less welcome items. We spent Friday cleaning Sanity mainly, both inside and out. Considering that we've been living on her and boating about in her for five and a half years, she really scrubs up very well.

Saturday we were up bright and early, putting the finishing touches to the boats and the yard, and then we hung about anxiously waiting to see if anyone would appear. We needn't have worried; at ten o'clock people started showing up and things got busier and busier as the day went on. We had a good selection of boats to show:

• Sanity
• Felonious Mongoose
• Priscilla
• Farne
• Autumn Years
• Cala
• New Dawn
• Braidbar 100

In addition we had The Big Boat to show through, a Community Boat with disabled access and a large open area where the saloon and dinette would normally be. She is very nearly finished and will be on her way sometime in the next couple of weeks. We also had the lined shell which is to become Braidbar's new hire boat.

The eating arrangements worked particularly well this year. On Friday evening we had a pot luck supper to which everyone brought a dish of their choice. Since each couple tended to bring enough for four there was an amazing amount of food to go with the baked potatoes which Susan Mason had produced. It really set the tone for the weekend; we had a merry evening which just stopped at the right time for once, so that there were no sore heads the next day.

During Saturday, Lizzie Birks of Shim Shams (the Birks had come by road and stayed in a local hotel) cut a steady supply of sandwiches. These were very good indeed and meant there was no need to go hungry even though we were all kept busy showing off the boats.

Saturday evening saw us barbecuing a good variety of meat; mostly people ate what they had brought, but again there was plenty left over to provide seconds. After that we went indoors for the quiz. A close fought competition was finally won by Des and Gill of Farne and Graham and Beryl of Priscilla.

On top of all this, Peter took two firm orders for new Braidbars and there are prospects for a third.

Less good was the fact that Klaus and Helga of Sebeq could not be with us as Klaus has just had a major operation for cancer. Our thoughts during the weekend were with them both and on Sunday morning we decided to donate the proceeds of the charity auction to Macmillan Nurses. This raised a substantial sum which, with the addition of some gift aid, will enable us to send a cheque for £500.

The other fly in the ointment was the news that the shell for Sanity Again is going to be late. We had approved the plans before the end of August, and Peter had sent them to Tim Tyler straight away, having booked the shell for delivery by the end of September. It now transpires that her base plate will be laid tomorrow, Tuesday, and so we can expect to see the shell in about three weeks time. Tim was expected to come to the Open Day, but didn't show up.

This is a bit disappointing, but is not Braidbar's fault. Fortunately, moving the whole build programme back two weeks doesn't make a lot of difference to us this time. Sanity Again should now be ready for her shake down cruise by mid February, and we have said that Sanity will be available for her new owner by the end of that month. We've had some good interest in her, but no firm offers as yet.

After a leisurely Sunday lunch, we went down to the Anson Engine Museum. It was just as good as I remembered from last year, as once more they had a number of the engines running including one of the very early ones. Sunday night those of us who were still around shared a Chinese takeaway in the bungalow.

We've had a leisurely start to today, not getting up until eight and pottering about putting various bits and pieces back on Sanity which we had tucked away to make a less cluttered boat for showing through. Sheila took advantage of shoreline power to run a washload and to tumble dry some of it.

After lunch, just as we were planning to leave, I spotted Iain Bryceland on the other side of the canal and nipped over there so that he could show me our mooring for the winter. Then it was a case of saying some goodbyes and Sheila skilfully extracted the boat from the yard and steered us down to Deer Farm Bend for the night.

Tomorrow we'll go on to Marple for resupply and probably come back towards Poynton. The canal continues to be very low on water, so I don't think we'll try to get up to Bugsworth or Whaley Bridge until we've had some rain.

Final piece of good news: Elanor tells us that a bottle of Famous Grouse has duly arrived from Canal Boat.