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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.
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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.
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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.
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A view of Salisbury Cathedral I'll long remember
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