Nathan and I spent last weekend on a canal boat. Nathan's family had hired one for the week and we went over on the weekend to spend time with them and experience an English tradition. We cruised along the Trent and Mersey canal, starting at Shardlow and spending the night in Willington, before turning around and finishing back in Shardlow. The canal was built in 1777 and it blows my mind to think the canal is older than NZ, and that the Brits were being quite industrial and inventing different modes of travel before NZ was even on the map!
To be honest, it isn't my holiday of choice as it is rather slow going and there is not much to see from the boat. I naively thought I would see grand country estates and rolling country side, but the reality was much less exciting - over grown grass and hedges along the river bank.
To amp up the excitment I tried steering the canal boat. Once I got the hang of moving the tiller left to go right and right to go left things went back to mundane. As we were only travelling at 5mph there was no wind in my hair or rush of adrenaline. The next task I tried was opening the locks. They are very heavy and much harder to move than I thought they would be. Luckily Kylie and Ashleigh had been practicing opening them all week and could pass on expert advice.
I really enjoyed parking up at the pub for lunch - a bit different having to tie your boat up and walking across the back yard to the pub. All-in-all it was good to get out and do something different and its nice for Nathan to spend time with his family.
For Nathan's 30th I bought him a one hour flying lesson. Even though his birthday was a while ago he finally took his lesson this weekend just gone. He loved flying and enquired how much it would cost to get his pilots licence - £7,000 for a private licence. It would take many more birthdays before he would clock up the necessary 40hrs!
