Some Background

Over the last 30 years or so Tony & I have owned several boats and had various adventures on river, canal & sea. We've seen one boat notch up more miles by road as we moved home around the country and towed another to the South of France where it set light to the cleanest lake in France!  We've crossed the Channel when it was like a Mill pond & you could see the coloured reflection of the boat in the surface of the sea and had the scariest trip along the Dutch/Belgium coast when the sea was so rough we wondered if the boat was up to the battering.

For the last 20 odd years we've had Motor Cruisers of varying sizes culminating in Twister a 34ft Falcon which served us very well on the East Coast.  However we were tiring of the unpredictable weather which adversely affected our boating and quite frankly the fuel costs were limiting our pleasure.  Back in the late 80's we'd had an ex-hire Narrowboat which we  named 'KERMIT', derived from our kids names KERry & MITch and because it was green & lived on the water!  I have very fond memories of the tranquility of our time on the canals in the Midlands and felt as we were nearing our retirement this would be a more suitable pursuit for us than bouncing along the East Coast at 25 - 30 knots.

Hence the decision in mid summer of 2011 to commission Aintree Boats to build us a 57 footer which we named Aylmer (an old family name in memory of Tony's Dad who spent many years in the Navy).  We took delivery of Aylmer at Stanstead Abbots on the river Lee early in December 2011 & took her on her maiden voyage through ice & snow to her permanent mooring at Little Hallingbury Marina on the river Stort.

I intend using this blog as a personal record of some of our journeys, trials & tribulations on Aylmer. It won't necessarily be chronological as I would like to include some of the happenings which occurred between summer 2011 and now and, what the heck, maybe some stories from our other water-bound adventures.  It may interest our Grandchildren as they grow up & hopefully share in some of our adventures.