Plans aplenty

I did make one New Year's resolution earlier in the month - to get out more. Now don't laugh, I know we always seem to be ducking and diving somewhere but we still spent an inordinate amount of time at home when we could have been off jollificating..oops, sorry, I meant working, either from the boat or the motorhome. Work and family commitments meant that we had virtually no summer cruising and no autumn cruising, that is, actual holiday time, so 2008 was a bit unsatisfactory to say the least. 2009 will be different...

Boatwise, there's already a working week on the Weaver planned for late March - great mobile coverage all the way there and it's wonderfully quiet, just the way we like it. Autumn's traditional holiday fortnight will see a pilgrimage to Bugsworth (always shut on previous visits) and then a foray up the Huddersfield Narrow, turning before the tunnel.

Vanwise, we have a working fortnight lined up in Scotland for late April (let there be no 'I need you on site now' emergencies, please!). We'll be returning to Dunnet Bay near Thurso for a week (brilliant beach, Costa Coffee served nearby, RIB trips out to Stroma) before wild camping on the middle weekend and then heading off to Skye. Comms are okay at Dunnet Bay and we're keeping our fingers crossed for Skye - Scotland does seem to have excellent coverage generally, so we're not too worried.

If no-one susses our absence on either of these occasions, then I also plan to head off to two places I've never visited - Pembrokeshire and Cornwall. Out of season would be best, though. And there are a couple of targets on the canal network that fall into the 'really must visit' category but I'll be buggered if I can work out quite how to shoehorn them into the year. Despite several attempts at the Caldon including a successful tootle down to Leek, Froghall still eludes us - and Stratford on Avon doesn't seem to come any nearer either. The latter was a putative destination for last Autumn's holiday until work got in the way - trouble is, we'd definitely need a fortnight to get down and back to Nantwich so I'm toying with the idea of either temporarily swapping marina berths with someone a bit further down south or just moving the old girl down to somewhere more convenient over the course of a weekend, paying for a visitor's mooring and then starting the holiday some 40-50 miles to the good a week or so later. But I suspect it'll be more likely to happen in 2010 that 2009...

More working weeks on water could see us revisit the Shroppie north of Barbridge - maybe just as far as Beeston - and to make a more leisurely exploration of the Llangollen, especially the arms that we missed out on in December. From memory, the mobile phone signal wasn't great so maybe we'll keep that for Christmas when everything's a lot less pressured. Ah Christmas...yes, we've decided that we don't want to be static next year so, weather permitting, we should be able to squeeze in another couple of weeks.

The only redemptive thing about the start of yet another year is that you have it all ahead of you and you can fill it with plans. So what if they don't always come off? The fun's in watching A's face as I tell him we won't be home for about 50% of the year....With luck.