Getting ready for our first Retirement cruise

It is Saturday May 7th and raining!  Got rather wet taking Mac for his constitutional down by Rufford Old Hall this morning so I have decided it is time to try this blogging lark!

We waited for the Royal Wedding and Bank holidays to be over with before jouneying down the M6 to Rufford on Tuesday.   Also we used April to visit London, catch up with the household chores, some much needed gardening and also to enjoy the warm dry spell. 

Our first day involved shopping and cleaning so least said.   Thursday I took the car back up the M6, no point in leaving it in the marina car park until July and anyway we do not intend returning to the marina until autumn.  I returned by train and it was starting to rain as I waited for the first of three trains and then during the jouney south it turned pretty stormy especially over Shap and I could see cars on the M6 sending up clouds of spray.
I had to wait for an hour at Preston for the local to Rufford but time past quickly, more so because I had a call from my cousin to tell me he would be unable to visit as arranged for Friday, but for the very best of reasons, his son had come out of hospital unexpectedly early, and they had been told his brain tumor was not malignant.  That has to be the best news he and my Aunt and Uncle have had for a while.

Friday started damp and dismal, but brightened, and Bridie and I decided to take a train trip from Rufford to Liverpool.   This was to be by way of a recce to see where we are going to be moored in the docks and to see what we could of the 'Spring on the Waterfront' festival, which will be over by the time we get there.   We enjoyed our brief visit, which included lunch in Albert Dock and a city and dock trip on the 'Yellow Duckmarine'. 
Things went downhill thereafter as we returned to Liverpool Central only to find services on the rail line to Ormskirk suspended.  Getting directions to catch a 351 Arriva bus from Sir Thomas Street we arrived at stand SA (how appropriate?) only to find a notice saying service 351 was ceased in March!  After a phone call to a National helpline and selecting numerous options to get to Liverpool information we found we wanted the 311 and it would arrive in 10 minutes.  Of course this all took time, the bus took us on a very depressing tour of shuttered shops and arrived at Ormskirk 10 minutes after our train had departed. So a long wait before we finally arrived back at the marina.


Back to today and the rain.  No point in departing yet and after yesterday a day of rest is called for.  We have downloaded our pictures of Liverpool and been experimenting with Google.