Monday morning, and your snuffling correspondent and the by now snuffling head gardener caught a train to Stoke-on-Trent, rescued the car from Festival Park marina and headed for home.

Tuesday morning your intrepid co-pilot waved bye-bye to the gardener, and on Wednesday Morning 3am (there’s a song title in there somewhere) was taken rather poorly. Wednesday afternoon a very nice doctor said she thought it was a gall bladder problem/infection or something; arranged for some antibiotics, an urgent ultrasound scan and said “if this happens again and your temperature spikes don’t mess around, just go straight to A&E and tell them what’s what”. Yes Mam!

And we’d only packed for three nights…

Anyway, suffice it to say that as soon as we felt up to it we had to make a quick trip back to Northwich to collect stuff for a longer stay, madam made it to her Jackstraws Day of Dance, and it was confirmed that yours truly had lots of gallstones and removal of the gall bladder was required. It was clear that the plan to cross the Pennines was no longer sensible, and that we’d really be better off working Song & Dance closer to home base in case more hospital visits were required. We were also getting concerned about the water supplies across the Northern canals as well – rumours about forthcoming closure were beginning to surface.

Eventually we headed back to Orchard Marina on Sunday July 1st. So much for a quick three night trip home!