Late Christmas present

The day itself went very well and we had the outlaws for lunch (no we didn't eat them). We had borrowed their combi-microwave the day before as ours is still not functioning correctly and I'd decided not to buy the new one (no surprise there). The cooking timings, that we had organised in quite a lot of detail beforehand, went flawlessly. It is usually a combined effort between Lisa and I and this year was no exception. There is always a lot of laughter when we are all together and never any falling out (although maybe a little grumpiness from me). The laughter may in part be due to the fact that they have lent us the money for fitting out the boat. We enjoyed the day enormously. Fortunately I fell asleep just as we were starting the Family Fortunes DVD interactive game and missed the whole thing (such a shame). They also watched the cartoon of Raymond Briggs 'Father Christmas' while I was asleep. Apparently there are some similarities between the main character and me. I can't see it myself. Happy bloomin' Christmas.

Now that that was all over we took a trip down to Hanbury Wharf today for the traditional Boxing Day walk. Our own village is full of ramblers as it always is this day every year. The intention was to see if the boat had arrived and indeed there it was moored at the yard (or at least it looked very like the boat in my plan and unless someone else has ordered a boat exactly the same I have to assume that it's ours). An ulterior motive for the trip was so I could try out Terri's new TomTom (boys and toys). It was quite good but I think I'll stick to my £1.99 AA map as there was nothing worse than having Lisa make conversation, the dog barking crazily, an automated voice telling me where to go at maximum volume (couldn't work out how to turn it down) and me unsure of exactly where I am in a car without any heating whatsoever and no water in the windscreen washer. Needless to say the return trip was made without the electronic gadgetry.

We are very pleased with the boat's looks from the outside at least and it's not riding as high in the water as I though it might. Still, we have got to hope there will be no high winds on the journey back to the Ashby. The maintenance window on the 11th to 14th January is now looking good which suits me just fine. Obviously we couldn't get access to it as the yard is shut and it still doesn't belong to us until we make the final payment. It looks like all the various orifices are in the right places but we could only see it from a distance and only the one side. Roll on the 2nd January.