Near the end of our Royal River journey

Near the end of our Royal River journey
Originally uploaded by jillian_werb

Mike got a canoe for his 40th birthday some time late last year, and it's been sitting in the lean to ever since.

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and blazing hot, so we planned a trip.

We'd lost the instructions for putting the canoe on top of the car, so we lashed it on as best as we could remember, and drove carefully to Dunn's Corner. There's a little put-in there.

The trip was beautiful. We paddled 5.75 miles from Dunn's Corner, through woods, woods and more woods, until we got to the waterworks in Yarmouth. Any further and you end up hitting some major waterfalls (which Mark was very worried about).

The river was covered in pollen, which explained my recent itchy eyes. Mike and I paddled, with a lot of help from Hannah, and an attempt at helping from Ellie.

It took nearly two hours, and was just heavenly. Next time we'll take fishing gear to keep the little ones happy.

After we'd taken out the boat, and had an ice cream at Handy Andy's, we stopped off at Mary and Philip's and said hello to them and their guests - who are here from London. After a couple of glasses of wine we were feeling no pain (or cold in my case), and could have sat there all evening.

But we had children to feed, and fresh home-made pesto waiting at home for us. I served up some delicious spag with chicken, pesto and burnt onion, while Mike and the children built a fire. We were a little worried about the whole forest going up, but we watched it carefully.

Roast marshmallows for pudding, then a footwash for everyone, then a very late night. Again!