Cropredy Marina

It was time to pack our bags this morning and hope we’d enough room for all the presents and post. Everything had fitted into our wheelie bag on the way to London, but going back we needed an extra bag, good job we’d brought one with us. It’s a nice problem to have returning with more than you arrived with, this of course is helped by my birthday falling on the 25th December.

An early farewell to Josh as he headed to school before 8am. At 10:30 it was time to wake Finn up from his box, Ziggy only slightly jealous of her brothers reign of the cardboard. Then goodbye and thank you to Andrew and Jac for their hospitality once again.

The No 30 bus moved faster on a Monday morning so we’d left ourselves plenty of time to sit at Marylebone Station listening to the foreign announcements about Bicester Village, now a destination for tourists to do duty free shopping.

On the train my knitting came back out and grew nicely, up to the point where the thumb was ready to be knitted using the ‘magic loop’ technique. We were soon back in Banbury and in a taxi back to the marina.

When we’d left on Saturday Tilly had been sat in our bedroom window, there she was still, just facing the opposite direction. Big cuddles and head nudges. Her magic food bowl had worked and opened, every morsel consumed, the large mountain of biscuits also had had a good chunk taken out of them. The heating was raised and we settled down to lunch.

With the stove out, Mick gave the chimney a good sweep, then hoovered the stove out and put the brand new glass in the door, an early Christmas present for Oleanna. The old glass has been wrapped up and stored under the stove should we need a spare in the future.

Unpacking and more washing took up the rest of the day with Tilly coming and going.

In the post I’d received a copy of The Separate Doors 3 Report that I was involved with earlier this year. Have to say my sketches and illustrations have come out very well and I am particularly proud of the front cover. Thank you Vanessa for asking me to be part of it.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 train, 1 taxi, 3 cats in one day, 1 very pleased to see us, 1 load washing, 1 load dried, 1 chimney swept, 1 boat hoovered, 1 corner missed, 0.5 inches too big? 1 very big bag of presents ready to sit under the tree, when we bring it in.