So this is the first post in a long time. It is from Lydia, a 4 berth 54ft long canal boat. A while ago we decided with Cliff and Jo to go on a narrow boat holiday and here we are in February on a boat. It is a warm 4 degrees. We left London this morning heading west along some roads out of London. The first stop was Avebury a village with a lot of standing stones, a National Trust car park and visitors center. Jo and I used the toilets Cliff and Sarah stayed in the car to avoid the £4 parking charge. We headed into Devizes not devices. We went to Sainsbury’s belong to J Sainsbury. We used Sarah project management and a Google sheet to quickly go around the small supermarket buying supplies. The car park cost 55p which we almost forgot to get refunded at time of payment. After shopping we headed to the Caen Hill Locks to have a quick look around and a lunch of humus, veg and bread. We had lunch sitting on a bench with a dog poo under it and a dog that seemed to want to eat our lunch. I think the dog was called Blondie. The locks were pretty impressive it was a flight of 16 we think somebody said. After the locks we headed to collect the boat. This involved unloading a lot of stuff on to the boat. Then watching a video about locks and how to use them. we headed off with the guy who showed us around the boat and then jump off fairly soon after leaving the Marina. We headed down the canal towards Bath. It was starting to get a bit dark. We then arrived at the first lock. There seemed to be a lot of people around the lock and a boat coming up which we didn’t see, which lead to a bit of confusion. The video also didn’t explain about the little hooks that needed to be raised on the winching gear on the locks, which meant that we didn’t realise that the paddles were open. In the end a helpful man in a baseball cap helped us out and it was all OK. We headed out of the lock, and found somewhere to moor up using the mooring pins, the bank was a bit muddy and we had to use the gang plank. We had a tagine for dinner that Sarah made at home and put in a plastic box. I am now writing this blog.