September 2018. A final summary of nine and a half years of living on our narrowboat, The Puzzler.

We moved to live on our narrowboat, The Puzzler, in April 2009, having sold our jigsaw and toy manufacturing business. We spent the first two years cruising around England, with two very cold winters on the Peak Forest canal, but in very good company.

 In April 2011, The Puzzler was transported to Ireland, with several boating friends suggesting that we keep an online blog about our experiences, so that they could decide whether or not to go too! As a result, this record of our travels began. In Ireland, we overwintered in Enniskillen in Northern Ireland, and during the summers, cruised practically all of the rivers and canals in both parts of this beautiful Emerald Isle. This map shows where we went, during our three years in Ireland.

Moving on in April 2014, The Puzzler had a long road journey across Ireland to Dublin, then across the Irish Sea to Holyhead by ferry. Having crossed North Wales and England by road, it was on to the ferry again, to get to Holland, on the other side of the North Sea. We rejoined her at Warmond, near to Leiden, and set off to explore The Netherlands. Again the map shows where we went in the next year, with our winter mooring being at Schagen, in North Holland. As there are so many small waterways in The Netherlands, I could not show them all, but have instead marked places which we reached with The Puzzler.

Once more it was April, in 2015, when we left Schagen to head south towards France. We took the short route across the east of Belgium, via Maastricht, and entered France on 2nd June. This next map shows all of our travels in this wonderful country. There are no small cruising circuits in France, and all the waterways are huge, by British standards. We cruised practically all of these routes shown at least twice, and in some cases, more than that! We learned to keep out of the way of barges of up to 3000 tons and quite enjoyed their company on our travels.

The final map is of Belgium,with both our preliminary passage in 2015, from The Netherlands through into France, and our final journey in August 2018 to Nieuwpoort, on the coast of Flanders.

Here is a cruising summary for the ten years we have lived on The Puzzler. Although we used kilometres on the continent, I have converted them to miles, for a better comparison of distance travelled.

 2009      728 locks + 1273 miles = 2001 lock/miles
 2010       607 locks + 982 miles = 1589 lock/miles
 2011      160 locks + 1093 miles = 1253 lock/miles
 2012       231 locks + 831 miles = 1062 lock/miles
 2013       212 locks + 838 miles = 1050 lock/miles
 2014       119 locks + 1667 miles = 1786 lock/miles
 2015       682 locks + 1555 miles = 2237 lock/miles
 2016       878 locks + 1608 miles = 2487 lock/miles
 2017       671 locks + 1098 miles = 1769 lock/miles
 2018       578 locks + 1510 miles = 2088 lock/miles
In total   4866 locks + 12455 miles  =  17321 lock/miles

So soon we will be back to living on dry land. The strangest thing we find about being in a house is that it does not move!

Many thanks for reading our blog and all the best for the future.

20th October - 6th November 2017. A visit to Norfolk, a college reunion for our 70th birthdays, then on to Cheltenham.

Our visit to England starts on the Norfolk broads where we were lucky to see a Norfolk wherry in full sail.

Then it is on to the Norfolk coast at Titchwell Marsh bird reserve, in bracing weather!

Back to Saham Toney where Andy is with his sister and brother.

On to Wiltshire, where we visited Bowood House, the home of the Marquis of Lansdowne, with all my college friends. These gardens were designed by Capability Brown.

We have all reached the age of 70 this year, so are gathered together to celebrate this occasion.

Mike is very kindly hosting our reunion, and calls us all to our celebratory dinner.

Everyone contributed to this grand occasion, and I think the meal ended up with 7 courses! It was so nice to catch up with all the news, and it seemed only yesterday that we were all together in Durham at Neville's Cross College.

Next we went on to spend time with Debbie and Matt. Our first outing was to Bourton on the Water, where the mini now has a good shape. Last time we were here, it was a work in progress!

The bridges in this town really give it its character.

The view of Cheltenham from Cleeve Hill is spectacular.

However, behind Andy, Debbie and me, the sky is threatening. Many thanks to Matt for sharing this, and other, of his quality photos.

The lone tree, on the top of Cleeve Hill, is very distinctive.

The sky keeps on changing, around Cleeve Hill.

The next day we went to Batsford arboretum, to see the autumn colours, with Matt and Debbie.

The house, nestling among the trees, is not open to the public.

There are some lovely autumn colours here in the Arboretum.

Debbie rubs Buddha's tummy, as everyone must!

Meanwhile Matt catches a good pose by the deer.

On our route southwards to the ferry, we visited Bathampton on the Kennet and Avon, where the line of narrowboats stretched away round the corner.

On the ferry Normandie, this mare and foal seemed to be very contented.

Down on the car deck, taller people had to duck to get to their cars! This is our first car for 10 years!