Reflections

Happy New Year to everyone, I really hope you all had a good one where ever you were, what ever you were doing and who ever you were with!

Another year has passed by and a new season is looming upon us shortly, looking back on last year it didn't turn out to be that bad after all, yes hire boat bookings could have been better but they were the same as the previous year, day boat bookings were the best we have ever had, the holiday cottage booked quite well (it should be even better now its had a make over) the new trip boat that we introduced in May did better than we anticipated, the dry dock was busier than anticipated, Richard our new painter turned out some superb paint jobs, as expected! Boat sales were a bit slower than previous years but picked up towards the end of the year, but I reckon the most noticeable difference was how quiet the canal seemed, considering we had some fantastic weather the canal just didn't seem to get busy at all with the usual traffic that we see, talking to others around the country they all said the same thing ' the canal was quiet' Sitting in the office writing this blog today looking out of the window at the blue skies and the sun beating down it is hard to imagine that it is the 2nd January today it really is more like a spring day, lets hope that this new season brings fantastic weather and lots boating!

As its New year I didn't think it was worth being fully staffed so there has only been myself and Joyce in today, how wrong I was first thing as we had two day boats go out, one was unexpected as it was the nice folks form the holiday cottage, who saw the sun and though they would take advantage and go cruising and the other one was booked on Tuesday and I hadn't noticed, so it was a bit balmy first thing but once I had got them going it settled down to a nice steady day.

Things will be back to normal as from Monday next week, everyone will be back off their holidays and the usual jobs will commence as we start to get the boats ready for the start of the season!

Until later in the week.
Simon