The Holloway Diary  
2009 - 2010
 
 
Now we are living in Derbyshire this news section will be updated every week or so. Earlier entries can be found at The Holloway Archive
The archive of our travels on nb Snecklifter can be found at Snecklifter : A Journey
 
 
 
    July 8
 
 
(Photos above and right by Claire McGeer)
Long time no update but if you are still reading this journal there have been three major events since March that I must mention, the first of them a second visit in mid-May from my niece Claire, her husband Lance and their daughters Meagan and Skyla (see left). Mother and daughters drove over from Llantwit Major in South Wales but this time Lance came on his splendid Harley-Davidson - something he was determined to do after a visit to Matlock Bath last October when we wandered up the main street admiring the bikes and chatting to the bikers.  Inevitably we returned to Matlock Bath on the last morning of their visit, parked the bike, walked through the gardens and along the river before returning to Quarry Lane where Liz had been cooking Sunday lunch.  
 
It was a most enjoyable weekend and, as you can see, one ageing bike fan* realised an ambition to at least sit on a Harley. 
 
Lance has threatened me with a short trip the next time he comes over and, despite my long fear of actually riding on a powerful motor bike, I will have to take him up on it. Just sitting astride one was liberating. 
 
 
*  Please note and excuse the contradiction. I think motorbikes are things of beauty but have never had the courage to take to the road on one!
 
 
 
 
Last month we eventually got around to taking up the offer from our son Jonathan and his partner Jenny of a long weekend in Paris to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary.  Yes, I know that was last July, but J & J have a busy life running and working for the Norfolk and Norwich Festival and bringing up our two granddaughters Sienna and Camille. When we finally left on Eurostar late Saturday morning June 12 it was the start of a three-day fest of eating, drinking, travelling the Metro and the Batobus, and generally spending some quality time with the girls who at four and a half and two years of age are so rewarding. There's a special page of photographs and travel notes at Paris In The Summer.
 
 
 
Just as there is full coverage on The Chester Run of a marvellous weekend cruising the upper reaches of the Shropshire Canal on nb Aeshna with our good friends David and Chris Owen-Roberts, this time celebrating our 41st anniversary while we were moored in the basin at Chester.  
 
I could not have enjoyed a return to life on the Cut more than I did the three days from Friday morning July 2 to Monday brunch-time on July 5.  The weather was good - long sunny stretches, broken by clouds and a breeze that kept things relatively cool (which suited me) - the food outstanding as always with Dave and Chris and the company stimulating. None of our hosts' concerns that close contact in a narrowboat through an extended visit might lead to tensions was realised.  
 
When the cruise ended, sitting out at their mooring eating scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast with bacon and mushrooms, I could have done it all again - the trip, that is, not the brunch. In fact, as we passed the turn on to the Middlewich branch on our way back to Nantwich I was tempted to take the tiller and make a rapid turn to port.  But Dave and Chris were about to start their holiday on a Four Counties cruise and had generously given up one long weekend to us, so I settled for hoping for another invitation next year or the year after. We hope they enjoy their cruise - and at least they'll have their bed back, for they had nobly settled for camp beds in the saloon.
 
 
August 2
There's one major event to cover in this update : a four-day visit to Romsey to stay with our friend Mike Hecken (left), who used to cruise the canals on his narrowboat Ronarosa.  Regular readers will know that we travelled for seven weeks with him on the Kennet and Avon canal, the Thames and the Oxford canal up to Braunston, and that since we sold Snecklifter we've visited him in the sunny South for a week each year. This trip had to be shorter because Liz has only so many days holiday and this year we have had, and still have, so many things to do, including a fortnight travelling through Spain by rail in September and taking a ferry over to Mallorca for the wedding of our son Jonathan and his partner Jenny.  
 
But, as always, we managed to cram in a lot during our stay - a short visit to Nether Wallop, where Mike used to live in a Methodist chapel he was converting; market day at Lymington where we bought three packs of superb sausages and some goat's cheese from a chap who had moved there from Derbyshire; an excellent sandwich lunch in Brockenhurst at the Snakecatcher's Inn, once the favoured watering hole for a local legend who caught snakes in the New Forest and sold them to zoos, universities and various researchers (the Ringwood beers there certainly had bite); and a return visit to the lovely old fishermen's pub in Mudeford for a crab/prawn sandwich Sunday lunch before catching the ferry over to Hengistbury Head.
 
 
 
 
Above the blue waters of the bay, we enjoyed a short walk in the sun (see below).  Mike was in his usual excellent form as tour guide (see the special page of photographs at Romsey Visit 2010), and we were delighted to discover that in the mid-1800s the area was mined by a company owned by a Mr J  E Holloway.  They'd even named the dock and cut, the short canal link to the harbour, after him. 
 
Most of Monday was spent in Salisbury where we walked through the town and around the Cathedral (literally around because the Cathedral authorities make a charge to tourists by "suggesting" a donation of about £4 to £5, and I won't pay to enter a place of worship). We stopped mid-morning at a cafe in one of the many fine buildings around the Cathedral close for one of the best cups of coffee Liz and I have had in ages, plus a spectacular hot chocolate with cream, marshmallows and Maltesers for Mike.  He assures me it tasted as good as it photographed.   
 
 
 
 
 
Lunch in the Market Inn was also memorable - sausage and onion wraps with perfectly cooked chips - as was that evening's meal at a Harvester Inn near Romsey where we were joined by Mike's son Lee. This last meal was a pleasant surprise. Although the beer was lager rather than real ale, the food and the waiter/waitress service were all first class. (I've mentioned all this eating, by the way, to explain why both Liz and I had each gained about four pounds in weight by the time we returned to Matlock. It's taken a couple of weeks to get back on our weight-loss track.)  
 
Since our return to normality, however - Liz to her work in Chesterfield, me to sorting out a new desktop computer when I'm not caring for the house and dog Molly - we've had several more happy reminders of our boating days in the shape of emails from Derek and Dot Canvin who have sold Gypsy Rover and will eventually return to New Zealand, from Mike and Jo Edwards on Sarah Kate and from Vicki Harley on PEM No 6 who was understandably concerned at my ambition expressed in my July 8 update "to at least sit on a Harley."  I promise to behave when Vicki visits us again in early September! 
 
Finally, I had a lovely long phone call from Sue Richardson who still spends the summer with husband Mike on nb Shania.  They were visiting Derby and remembered we lived in the county. As they travel towards Barton Turns, Liz and I hope to drive down to see them again. 
 
 
 
 
A view of Salisbury Cathedral I'll long remember 
August 4
Just a quick update to celebrate the news that our son Jonathan has been appointed artistic director of the Perth International Arts Festival in Western Australia.  Obviously we are both delighted that he had made such a great career move and unhappy that he, Jenny, and our grandaughters Sienna and Camille will be moving to Australia in the New Year and staying there for about four years. However, they will be back in the UK for a visit each year and Liz will certainly fly out to Perth at least every other year - I won't fly so I'll have to make do with regular chats on Skype and, of course, their visit to Matlock each year.   
 
Fuller details of the appointment and the legacy Jonathan leaves in Norwich can be seen on this BBC link