Today the arrival of our second grandchild Poppy May  at 12.19pm has given us all reason to celebrate.

 Today would have been Dad's Birthday and is the anniversary of when Mum passed away.
Both are still missed

Woke up to misty moorings at Bottisham Lock this morning and still waiting for the birth of our second grandchild.
At the time of writing this Claire has been having contractions but no sign of baby.

 Yesterday we travelled the Reach Lode/Burwell Lode picking a couple of hitch hiker ducks before we got to the lock and then had to get E.A. people to give us a hand re setting the lock, luckily they were checking the moorings near the lock.
Then in the afternoon we met up with Hilary's cousin who had a lot of information about her family history

Tonight we are moored at the Five Miles From Anywhere pub.

Yesterday we stayed in Ely as there was a severe weather warning for the area, so Dave and I took a trip to the city of bikes Cambridge.
In the evening  Hilary's friend Lester visited.

 

It has been a very busy weekend at Ely boat wise but today Caroline and James visited us so we went to the international market.

Saturday Evening we took Cassie for a walk and ended up in a bus shelter sheltering from the heavy rain where she proceeded to bark at the passing cars.
Yesterday we moved on to a very busy Ely where Sacha and Ray came up to see us.

 We have now moved back on the Great Ouse mooring at Brandon Creek Moorings.
The photographs shows the width of the Ouse.

We took trip along the River Wissey today getting as far as a lake near the sugar beet factory where we spun around to get back to some moorings before the thunder storms started.

 

 Today we had to wait for the tide before we could leave the Middle levels through Salters Lode lock to go on the tidal Great Ouse.
Tonight we are moored at Denver Sluice

As we have moved on today we passed one of the many wind or solar panel farms on the Middle Levels.
We have chewed our way tonight to Outwell where the moorings literally shake as H.G.V.'s pass on the road.

 After tackling the thin and shallow parts leading to Whittlesey  the Middle Levels opened up and got deeper, but very straight and not a lot to see.

 The other day we moved off the River Nene on to the Middle Levels where things got a bit tight.
After mooring at  Ashline Lock in Whittlesey Yvonne and Dave treated us to a fish curry.

Tonight we are moored in Peterborough where we have taken on supplies before we go off the Nene and travel down the Middle Levels.

Yesterday we moored at Ferry Meadows and Hilary's friends Pauline and Dieter who she had not seen for twenty years visited.

 Today we have moved on too Wansford Station moorings and we arrived just as the steam train on the Nene Valley Railway arrived at the station.

We travelled on to Fotheringhay Bridge yesterday passing Lorimar who is another Heartwood built boat.
Here is a castle mound where Mary Queen of Scots was executed.

We have been pretty lucky with the weather and have only had to get suited and booted for wet weather once as we travelled to Oundle.
Oundle is a beautiful town with the old buildings and taken over by a sprawling private school.

We moved on Sunday and had a couple of spectators at the locks.
Whilst at a water point we have made a note of a pub that we will visit on our journey back which is the Kings Head at Wadenhoe.