With a heavy heart....

'The times they are a changing'..... I have moored my three boats at the same spot since January 2007.

We owned Comet for just three months. She was a nice boat but I knew she was a maintenance challenge and having youngish kids at home and a full work life I did not have time to cruise and repair. Plus at that time you could transfer moorings with boats and Hunts moorings did not come up too often so buying Comet got us the mooring we wanted.

So Waterlily arrived Mid 2008  - I have checked for a decent picture of Waterlily at Hunts andf the first I could find was the following winter.... much of my Waterlily blogging was words and less pictures.

And four happy years later Waterlily was gone -this is one of the last pictures taken just before we cruised to Great Haywood where she was sold. 

 A little handover of the moorings between boats (I recall Mandy our neighbour allowed us to use her mooting while she was away, hence the location of Waterlily....

Those who know the moorings will see we really have not moved too far....

This is an old photo with all three boats in front of Waterlily being sold (The maroon boat, such as life) was repainted blue and sold and now lived on Kings Bromley Wharf. This photo is pre my other neighbour Mandy who brought Don't Panic there in I guess 2008 ?

So why all the reminiscing? Much chat on the moorings about marinas housing estates and gravel extraction is coming to a sad reality. There is planning approval for a 60 boat marina just below Common lock, and I think a larger marina at Alrewas buit this may not get build. I like the boats and the marina being a little closed than the winding hole at Alrewas would be useful.

The housing is extending out from Fradley and the field behind us is owned by one of the large builders - not that I expect it will get to Hunts in the next 10 or so years. The biggest sadness is there is approval for gravel extraction in the fields across the canal from us. So that will be noise, dust and a lot more traffic on the lanes.

Basically the beautiful Fradley junction is being changed from what is was when we first had a boat.

My mooring is up for renewal in July so I may have another year as I like it but as others may move on the community will dissipate and that is another reason not to stay. 

I am sad writing this but life moves on.

I may consider a marina next time, less maintenance but a lot more cost. Plus we can stay a couple of years and move on so was can base ourselves around the system.

I don't like change so it will take something to move me from Fradley but that something is on its way and the loss of fellow friends and boaters will be the real decider.