New Year's Eve

We did not need to make a prompt start to today as there were no planned maintenance tasks! Instead, we set off mid morning to drive over to Windsor - Jess and Alice are staying with us tonight,

However, Christine wanted to visit the shops in Windsor town centre - which turned out to be quite busy. Finding a car park with en empty slot took a bit of effort not least because the 'number of spaces' sign seemed to be wildly optimistic! Even the large  - and expensive - multi storey car park was almost full (despite alleged;y having several hundred spare spaces) and we had to go up four levels to find somewhere to park. £3.70 just for two hours - ouch!

Christine is wanting to replace her handbag - never an easy task - her current one was bought here on a previous visit some while back. We headed first to Fenwicks where that one had come from but even in the sale their bags were very upmarket - several hundred pounds for something that did not look especially attractive.

Sad to say, but after looking in several shops and spending quite a bit of time deciding not to go for one particular bag - nothing eventually stood out as a satisfactory replacement.

Whilst waiting in Daniells's, Mike was unexpectedly taken back around 55 years to when as a teenager he had Christmas jobs in a south London department store (no longer there). Both places record their buying cost on the price tag - so that senior staff know what discount they can offer in the sales. These are encoded and, not sure why it has stuck, but Mike can never forget YCNOSWAPFI. It was supposed to be a secret but perhaps the cat can be revealed after all this time and Daniells were careless enough to leave theirs lying around on one of their stock trolleys!

We went to a small cafe at the bottom end of Peascod Street, one that specialises in continental breads and cakes - there is a choice of about a dozen different breads for sandwiches! As it happens we both opted for something we had not seen in a cafe before: rosti with toppings. Christine had smoked salmon whilst Mike had chicken and cheese.

By then our two hours was fast running out so we returned to the car park and adjourned to Bolton Road. Ellie was up and about so was able to update us on her recent trip to Belfast - she returned only late on Christmas Eve.

On the way back to the boat with Alice and Jess we called at Morrisons so that they had a chance to decide on their preferences for an evening meal.  At that stage Jess was not over hungry as she had had a large lunch with her Mum at the local 'greasy spoon' - as they describe it!

However, by the time they had finished watching a film about taming a dragon, food was required - Mike ended up serving four different plates - Jess's choice of a  burger in a bun quickly disappeared. Note that the bun had to be a brioche bun as 'that is what we have at home'!

Whilst Jess retired to her bunk at a reasonable (ish!) hour, Alice was determined to see in the New Year for the first time. We all watched several tv programmes including a very clever ventriloquist who not only used her traditional monkey puppet but also involved three members of the audience. She  voiced all the parts using masks that she could make the mouths move up and down!

Most of the last hour was spent listening to Jools Holland who has been seeing in the New Year with his eclectic mix of singers for the past 23 years. This year was no disappointment and included Tom Jones not only on his own but also in combination with some of the other singers in quite remarkable performances.

And then it was midnight - we were already armed with celebration drinks and, like the audience in the studio - linked arms to sing Auld Lang Syne. Mike sent an email to the Rembrandt Gardens booking service at 30 seconds after midnight - the earliest acceptable date for booking spaces in February. The CaRT replacement service for the trial run by Sarah which we used before is much less flexible and our previous request for this break was deemed invalid but by the time they managed to tell us that, all the spaces had been allocated!. We will just have to wait and see if they really do play fair and that not too many people automated their emails for 10 seconds earlier than ours!

Finally, we stood on the back deck of the boat to watch the fireworks - at least a dozen different ones at all points of the compass around us. One of the boats in the marina set off a very bright red flare that lasted for several minutes!

Time then to wish each other a happy 2016 and to retire to bed.