Gosh that was some flooding.

 December 27th

That's it Christmas festivities over for another year. As usual, we have eaten and drunk too much, played loads of games with the grandkids and had the traditional late night Poker game once the children were in bed. (3 am finish!) The pounds have been piled on, never a wonder when two Christmas dinners were eaten, one cooked by Iwona, our Polish Daughter in Law on Christmas Eve consisting of borscht soup with dumplings (beetroot) for starters, fried fish and potatoes for the main course and Makowiec, a Polish cake made with poppyseeds for dessert.

Polish Christmas dinner on the 24th

 

Then the next day the usual Turkey Christmas dinner with all trimmings. Crikey the bird was big! Enough meat to feed the five thousand let alone just the 6 of us! To be fair though, Iwona's mum and brother were due to fly in from Poland to join us all but a mix-up with passports put paid to that! And what with the bacon sandwiches fed to us at every breakfast and a mountain of nuts, crisps, nachos etc to be eaten throughout the day, no wonder the belts had to be loosened!

 

New Year's resolution....lose weight and cut out the alcohol. Hmm, maybe the latter is a bit harsh! Anyway as always present opening was hectic. So many to open, most for the grandchildren, but also for Toffee on her very first Christmas. Wow she loved it. Took to tearing open the paper to get the present inside. Shame she couldn't tell which was hers and which were the grandkids! Loads of fun though and much hilarity.

 

It would have been nice to have stayed longer, but because of the stoppage on the Erewash on the 9th January, we had to leave. So with some reluctance our son took us back to FS. It was raining...not a pleasant day for going cruising, in fact over most of Christmas the rain has been relentless.

The start of the return journey, along the 6 miles of spaced out moored boats where no speed could be achieved. None of those boats moored on our way to Colin's had moved so tickover most of the way back to Cosgrove. But would you credit it!! A boat was met at the self same place where that branch stuck out causing me to go into reverse. This time it was us that gave way, having to get really close to those moored boats. It was a working boat wanting to get past. Much deeper drafted than us and to give way was a must. They do need the deepest part of the canal. 

 

Over the aqueduct at Cosgrove and wow, the flooding was phenomenal! Did I mention we had rain over Christmas? Well the Great Ouse had burst its banks, flooding not only the surrounding fields but the caravan park as well.

It was time to stop and Cosgrove was that place. No mooring cladding to secure to so out came the mallet and stakes. Ian didn't bother to cross pin, so little boat traffic we felt that to be a bit OTT. Weather forecast was not good for tomorrow. Wish we could just stay and wait for better weather but no not this time, just have to grin and bear it!

And seen on route,