What a weekend

I think I can remember most of it…

First off, the weather held fine for the entire time, only breaking today, which was both great and such a nice change. We saw loads of people on the Saturday, most of them obviously serious about buying a boat, so we're keeping our fingers crossed for some phone calls to Peter in the near future.

The Saturday evening seemed to go well; we held the charity auction after the Open Day was finished, and raised over £600 for the chosen charity, Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research. By the time that money has been gift aided, it should be worth over £750 to them. Many thanks to everyone who took part, whether contributing lots, bidding for them or making a donation to add to the total.

And a very special thanks to Bill and Eileen for being our auctioneer and clerk on the night. They make spending silly amounts of money great fun.

/wahaha

There followed the barbecue and the dreaded quiz. It was a close run thing between six teams this year - the first round proved difficult, and I must try harder to give folk an easy start next year. (Mind you, I always say that…)

Sunday was a quiet start – I managed to emerge in time to help take the small tables and chairs we'd borrowed from Andy Bailey at the Trading Post back to him. Andy is a great guy, always helpful and smiling, and really deserves to succeed.

A few of us went for a walk in the blazing sun, up into Lyme Park, round the edge of the hill and back down to find the canal at Bridge 16, and so back to the yard. We then did our best to eat up some of the spare food for lunch, and had a quiet afternoon, sitting around, chatting and occasionally getting cups of tea or whatever.

Peter and Susan had left us for a while to take their daughter to start her course at University, but managed to time their return to collect our Chinese take away as they came through Poynton. A sizeable  group of us scoffed that and were joined later on by another cohort who had gone for the Sunday Lunch option at the Boars Head. It wasn't quite such a late night, so some of us were able to be up and about in very good time this morning.

The tents are all down and put away, boats have been shuffled yet again, and the yard is gradually returning to normal. We've got a few jobs to be done on Sanity Again, but won't be in the yard much longer, I should guess.

We're having a meal in the Boars Head with Peter and Gill Harper tonight – after that, we really must lay off the booze for a few days to recover.

/blur