Back in the ginormous marina, Monday saw Fran heading off in the car for home, as – apart from wanting to stop dragging the car around with us – there were some things to sort out as we had a decorator coming to paint the outside of the house. A journey from hell, she got home in the end about three hours later than expected. But at least on Tuesday she was invited to dinner at Chirkley Court, the new posh hotel near Leatherhead, to celebrate her niece’s big birthday. They got VIP treatment, as her nephew is one of the duty managers…

Meanwhile, Song & Dance looked jealously across at the Wide Body department: you can get much bigger boats on this part of the network, but most looked pretty much like stationary live-aboard boats. Good job they’re not boating around causing chaos. Reminds me of another one we saw down on the Thames somewhere called Fat Bottomed Girl, presumably in contrast to at least two rather slimmer narrowboats called Flat Bottomed Girl.

The marina really is huge (it’s more than a mile to walk around it), and comes complete with it’s own shopping centre, bar, decent restaurant, farm shop, cafe, chandlery, holiday lodges, boat rides etc. etc. And they’re still expanding. It’s a tourist destination in its own right. If you’re that sort of tourist…

With the boss returning by train on Wednesday afternoon, we were glad to escape on Thursday morning and sail out into the peace and quiet of the Derbyshire countryside. We’d seen a different Comfortably Numb up on the Caldon Canal, but seeing the name again seemed to sum up how we felt, recovering from folk festivals, mad marinas and the like. It was good to be back boating.