Daniel Oakley

A big thank you to Barry for our free tickets, we had a great day out at the boat show. Our aim was to research bathrooms and to see what was new. We failed miserably in the former but Paul spent a lot of time looking at generators, solar panels and calorifiers!

I looked at the boats, most of which were way outside our pocket. In fact I would guess that, for the most part, potential buyers were the retired, or soon to be retired members of the banking fraternity (after all they are the only ones with huge amounts of spare cash at present! If I sound bitter its because the HE Sector have just been told there will be huge cuts in funding).

Here are some of the bigger boats

Smart Boats Excel Centre 2010

And some of the smaller boats

Narrow Boats at the Excel Centre 2010

If anyone else goes I would be interested in what you think. Oh and you might want to take your lunch with you as the food options were dire and very expensive.

I was walking Charlie in the park when I noticed the guy ahead of me bury his dog’s “download” in the snow. I wondered how many other dog walkers had been doing this and what would we see when the snow melts?

The following morning after seeing the boys I popped round to Exeter CVS to see the folks I used to work with. Great to see John, Liz, Von, Jo, Sue, Em and all the gang. Too early for Gabi, sorry I missed her. It seemed to be really buzzy, loads going on, really good to see.

Paul was keen to get up to Bristol before the snow arrived. He had meetings and the dentist and I had a reunion with other members from the SW Action Learning Set (see the new page I have set up http://danieloakley.org.uk/?page_id=809 )

The following day we woke to 6 inches of snow in Bristol. Should we stay or should we go? We went.
Paul drove. The roads getting out of Bristol were a bit dicey, but almost clear of traffic. The M5 was down to 2 lanes but OK. The worst bit was turning into my sister’s road, when we called to collect Charlie.

A quik cuppa and sarnie and it was off to banbury on the M42 and M40. The worst bit of the journey was the approach to Banbury in Oxfordshire. There was a huge amount of snow and we pulled thankfully into the car park at Wickes, near the boat. We went round into the arm to see a delightful winter scene. Jim had kept the fire on the boat going for us so it was It was good to be back.

Snow on Atalanta

I needed to see the boys. It had been so long since seeing Daniel and David in particular and Christmas had made things worse, so Paul and I dashed down to Devon last Monday to see them, after dropping Charlie off with my sister Lu.

Dinner in Exeter with the boys and Holly

We met up in Exeter and went for a meal. Dave had brought his new girlfriend Holly to meet us – it must be serious then! A lovely young woman, I thought she held her own very well with the boys when the banter grew more lively. Dave and Holly left soon after we had eaten as theyhad to drive down to Cornwall and the forecast wesn’t good. Dan and Nick came back to the Hotel and we had a drink in the bar.

Nick, my youngest son stayed with us until 1.45am as he was getting the coach from Exeter to Heathrow, to catch a plane to Miami the following morning. He was going to meet a young woman he met through Facebook. You can imagine all the scare stories his brothers told him!