It has been a very busy winter for us this year. It started with blacking the bottom of Enchanted moon. While on the slipway and under cover we stripped and repainted the roof as well, so it was a hard weeks work. We had help from friends for the first few days, which made a hard dirty job much more fun.

We did 3 trips into Birmingham in the run up to Christmas, but the weather was against us and there were not many people down by the canal as a result.

 For the Floating market in December all the boats put up Christmas lights and it was a lovely sight. Our light Christmas tree was much admired.

Our Christmas was spent back in Eastbourne with our two daughters and, while there, we made the decision to put the house on the market and move onto the boats full time. this meant that a lot of time has had to be spent clearing the house of all the accumulated rubbish of 30 years!!

We have now accepted an offer and wait with fingers crossed for the sale to complete. Hopefully it will be settled before we want to start our cruise for the year.

The current job for me is booking festivals and markets for the year and planning a route. Andrew is still busy with fitting out the boat. He has installed the solar panels on both boats and is working on the legs to support the workbenches to provide the extra work space needed to run courses. I have been touching up the blacking on the hull, when the weather has allowed.

In between the boat work we have been experimenting with new glass designs, including a Narrowboat plaque and a new way to etch the dichroic glass for our motif pendants.

We are now looking forward to the return of the sunshine and warmer weather so that the 2016 season can start in earnest.