A birthday cruise through Stone

It was Vicky's 43rd birthday! We rose and had a special breakfast of eggy bread followed by a few pressies. We set off planning to meet Dad and Sarah at the water point a few hundred metres up the canal but Stone is terrible for parking so they pulled up temporarily at the leisure centre and we ferried the items that we'd had delivered to them, as well as birthday presents and cake to Rainboat. Dad then joined us while Sarah took the dogs to find parking for the van. Will walked ahead to work the locks while Vicky and Dad took the boat. Dad and Sarah's narrowboat Drifter is an older, traditional style that's about 10ft shorter. Dad noted a surprising number of differences between them when steering.

Sarah eventually found a small canalside field to park in and joined us after a few locks. She'd scouted out a good place to moor near the van. After they'd settled Lenny and Elsie back inside, Dad and Sarah joined us for a buffet lunch, cake and pressies onboard. It made such a difference to have them there celebrating with us and Vicky was on a real high all day 🥰 She wasn't even too cross when we discovered Leo had somehow scoffed a quarter of her birthday cake. He was waddling for the next three days but otherwise suffered no ill effects. Little monkey! 🙊Read more