The journey pt1

Friday 15th November.

It took me ages to load the trusty Polo with all the stuff to take up to the boat. The boot was full and also the back seat.
What with blankets, pillows, quilt, tools, equipment, clothes, kitchen stuff etc the poor little Polo was jam packed.
It seemed pointless to drive to my brothers house only to then drive to Mercia marina the following day so i carried on up the M1 straight to the marina. Once there i unloaded the stuff from the car onto the boat, 5 trips of carrying stuff from car, down the steps, along the pontoon and into the boat! People who know me will be aware that my legs don't work too good, so as you can imagine i was pretty knackered by the time the car was empty, but ,hey, it was a good job i did it that way as it meant i arrived some hours later at Graham and Jacki's with an empty car........ Which we promptly filled up with more stuff to take to Kings Bromley marina where we left my car to await our arrival on Sunday,  IN the boat.

Saturday 16th

A friend of Graham and Jacki had been press ganged into taking us 3 plus the remainder of stuff needed on the boat journey, up to Mercia Marina. So, there we were trying to stuff the contents of brothers garage, plus us 3, PLUS a 10 foot barge pole into a Vectra.
Well we did it!
Arriving at Mercia the first job was obviously to unload the car and stow it all aboard the boat, then buy some coal for the stove, along with a couple of last minute items, like a mop and bucket and cleaning materials. Then to start the engine...... I'll talk more about starting the engine later, suffice to say its not as straight forward as just turning the key.
We left the engine running to warm it up whilst we pottered about sorting out last minute stuff, like asking a knowledgeable chap how to get out of the marina!  :) sounds silly i know, but Mercia marina is a very big place and i had only ever been there by road. He sort of pointed and waved his arm around and left us to it.
Half an hour later, after exploring firstly number 1, then 2, then all 3 basins in the marina, we found the exit!
Turning right out of the marina we were on the Trent and Mersey canal heading due West, or was it East? No i'm pretty sure it was West.:)
To be continued.