Holiday dilemmas

Can someone tell me why planning one’s next cruise is such a nightmare? I’ve hit warp factor 8 with the old Canal Planner, putting in more and more ridiculous itineraries until there are not enough intermediate places available to give me a sensible route. The trouble is, my head battles with my heart. My heart wants to go mad, to do an impossible trip, to rekindle the energy of my youth and knock up a four figure lock mile total. My head says ‘Calm down, love, you’re old and crumbly and six hours a day is about your limit. Get real.’ So currently, I’m like a ball in a pin-ball machine, pinging excitedly from a lunatic trip to Stratford on Avon and back via Braunston to a perfectly sane pootle up to Bugsworth Basin, with maybe some Weaver action on the side.

But deep down I know my limitations and I’m also aware that we’ve developed a bit of a routine and it works for us. So why fight it? By the time we’re up and about and we’ve walked the dogs and tidied up, it’s invariably 10am before we up sticks. We tend to have a short break at lunchtime for dog tiddling and by 4-5pm we’re looking to moor up for the evening. And that does for me as I’ll be in bed by ten and asleep by one minute past! A tough trip means lots of early mornings and we’re not too good at those...even if we manage to get up by 6.30 (rarer than a hedge strimmer on the South Oxford) it’s still 8 before we’re ready, what with woof duties and all. I comfort myself with the fact that one day there will never be a beginning or an end to a holiday nor a halfway point or a turning round point. We will be on one continuous cruise and everything I’ve missed out on thus far I can enjoy at my leisure. So Stratford or bust? Er... I hear the Peak Forest is delightful in autumn...