June already 1-6-10 to 9-6-10

We had planned to do an open topped bus tour of Chester with Luke but as it was raining again (we seem destined only to see Chester in the rain) we didn’t.  Instead I spent the morning taking the loo out again as it was not pumping away again.  After not finding a blockage and putting it back in it still wouldn’t work.  That seemed to indicate that the pipe to the holding tank must be blocked, but no, after rod-ing it with an expensive but good sink and drain unblocker it still wouldn’t work.  Out with the standby porta potti and the last hope of the nice man at Chester Marine who operate out of Tattenhall Marina which was our next stop.  We set off for the marina as Luke was keen to do some locks. After an overnight stop at Christleton we arrived at the marina at about 3.30pm on Wed 3^rd .  This gave me time to chat to the man thinking that we would have to leave it to him while we      were away at the New Forest.  He was a nice man though and told me that it was almost certainly a blocked breather tube, and he was right so by the evening the loo was working again and I’m quietly confident that the loo will behave itself for the rest of our trip.  While I was doing that Margaret cycled back to Chester to get the car.  Thursday we drove down to the New   Forest for our annual family camp where we all had a great time and caught up with all the children.  Not one drop of rain all the time we were there and we left on Sunday afternoon and spent the night with Joe at Reading.  Monday we drove back to the boat and got back about 2pm.  I took the opportunity to change the engine oil and filter while I was at the marina.  It is supposed to be done every 200 hours but as I didn’t know when it was last done I did it after 100 hours.  Tuesday we drove back to Chester to finish our look round from the last time we were there, while we were waiting for Sam and the boys to visit and guess what… it was raining again.  It did improve and we had lunch in Chester and caught up with Sue & Clive who happened to be in the basin still, we had a walk by the river and then went back to the boat.    Next day the 9^th we went to Chester Zoo which was great, it was such a long time ago that either of us has been to a zoo.  We are setting off again tomorrow but I hope the weather is ok so I can clean the car and put the cover on as we won’t be using again until September.