Tuesday 5^th – Friday 8^th February 2019

Thursday was Peter’s funeral. It had been a difficult number of weeks, no doubt for all concerned. Peter had been dead for over three weeks and in hospital prior to that. In that time, we had not felt like cruising or exploring, had wanted to stay close to decent internet connections and transport links in a place where we felt safe leaving the boat. In short, we have been in limbo.

We put the dog in kennels for the first time ever. Upsetting leaving him but he didn’t seem at all perturbed when we went to pick him up. Which was a relief to us.

We hired a car so were driving for the first time in almost ten months. We needn’t have worried though. We are only ½ mile from the M6 and for the first 10 miles we were going slower than we go on the boat so there was plenty of opportunity for familiarisation.

The funeral was obviously, a very sad affair although Peter had a good send-off. His coffin looked splendid, draped in a Police flag, having been a Police Officer for 33 years, and a single wreath. He was a popular man, borne out by the numbers of people at the church and the Guard of Honour by the Eastham Lodge Golf Club where Peter had been a member forever and the treasurer for 11 years. His sons, David and Johnathon, gave magnificent eulogies to their father and he would have been very proud in their delivery and content.

The coffin entered Blacon Crematorium to the tune of 633 Squadron and exited to the Cricket theme tune, Limbo by Booker T and The MGs. It brought a smile and you could imagine Peter giving one of his deep booming laughs.

As always at funerals, it was good to see family members that haven’t been seen for far too many years, with promises of keeping in touch. We must all make the effort.   

We didn’t want to stay and so came home after a big shop while we had a car and picking the dog up. The drive back was awful, queuing on the M6 for over an hour before coming off at junction 7 and re-joining at junction 5. Goes to reinforce why I say I don’t miss driving at all. We passed over the Birmingham and Fazelely Canal, a canal we should be on within a few weeks. Not a very nice area and certainly we won’t be lingering.

Back at the boat all was good. Mark on nb Callisto had delivered diesel and coal in our absence. Very good of him to do this on trust but, as people say on the canal, if you don’t pay, where are you going to run to?

We didn’t much feel like eating so settled down to some tv and sandwiches. It was blowing an absolute gale and the whole boat was resonating and vibrating with the buffeting. It felt very unsettling. It didn’t make for a comfortable night either, with all the noise of the winds and things moving about on the roof.