Last day of the festival

We got together last night with the Sleaford canal trust . They invited us for a BBQ which we willingly excepted. With 5 BBQ's on the go, all the meat was cooked in record time and the merriment carried on well into the night.



There was lots of smoke which unfortunately revealed a wasps nest. Luckily no one was stung!!!

Judy had a funny turn this morning. She managed to get out of her basket and then collapsed with both back legs rigid and stretched either side of her head. Ian tried in vain to lift her and unfortunately she messed while this was going on and it took the combined effort of Ian and me to get her standing and out of the boat. Its not a very nice thought but maybe the time has come to send her to sleep. I wont allow her to suffer needlessly.
We made sure we were on site for the awards by 11am. We had entered our boat for most enterprising journey but as usual someone always does that little bit more then you. So nothing for us then, but Bruce and Shelia from Nb Sanity Again took the prize for Best Galley fit out and Jim and Annie on Nb Elizabeth took longest journey from January 1st ( 750miles and 500+ locks).



Bruce and Shelia with the award. Apologies for the picture. I was in the wrong place for the photo



A prize of a BBQ. No excuse for not doing the cooking Bruce!!!



Jim receiving the silver plate for the longest journey since January 1st.

 Again we spent more money today. This time on a new solar panel. We have 2 panel's laying flat on our roof, at the moment, but they don't give us enough power to run the fridge so hopefully with another one that we can angle to the sun, it will do the trick. All Ian has to do now is build a bracket to mount it on.

As we still hadn't seen all there was to see on the site ( even after 2 days) we walked toward the show boats and came across the Viking Encampment. Very authentic and everyone involved played their part well. Even the children were wonderfully behaved.



A snooze before the battle.




Very well behaved children. If both our grandson's had been there they would have scarpered by now!

 Then we had the battle in the main arena.


Preparing for battle.




The  fighting commenced.





The victor

  All in all this has been an excellent, well run festival. The weather has been perfect. Changing the dates seemed to work and not a drop of rain fell in all of the three days. Loads of boats have been leaving throughout the day with more booked out for tomorrow. We are hoping to move onto a piled mooring  when a space becomes available nearer to the site. Apart from the noise from the lorry's on this mooring, it wasn't to bad, but because we couldn't get anywhere near the bank, and poor Judy having to walk the plank which  made life difficult for her,  a proper bank side mooring will help her no end.