Good & bad news - mooring related...

Sometimes when you want something you can't have, you make a choice to accept something you can have and make the best of it.  This applies to most things in life as nothing is perfect as I'm sure you all know.  Compromise is something we're actually very good at.  When some people are desperately trying to clutch for the latest gadgetry or fancy cars, we're happy to bumble along with our knackered old laptops and ageing cars...(although we do currently have 4 between the 2 of us but that's my fault... buying and selling cars is a bit of a hobby of mine) -  we don't usually make much/any money but conversely, neither do we tend to lose much either.

SO - last night I was reading a posting about cheap moorings  - apparently such things DO exist... but in the example given on the posting, it was clearly an error.  A mooring in a marina for £222 per year.  Anyway, in the posting there was a link to the CRT (Canal & River Trust - successor to British Waterways but now a charity) mooring vacancies site...and being nosey inquisitive, I thought I'd take another look around to see if any thing local had come up since my last visit.

Low and behold, there on the page before me was a 57' 1" mooring at Stanley Ferry

It's a lovely place... behind the relatively safety of the flood gates off the river Calder again but more interestingly,  MORE local to home... AND with a decent facilities block - not to mention a pub on site.  What more can anyone ask for?

This threw me into a bit of a state of panic...given we were still waiting to hear back from Fairies Hill - you remember, the place we'd convinced ourselves that was perfect.    Anyway, on checking my email *note to self - check email BEFORE stressing in future* I find Chris had replied:

 Hi Mark

thank you very much for the email below, sorry for the delay in getting back to you, had a couple of days off and then on catch up. 

After looking at the boats that are coming in we are now completely full.  That doesn't mean that boaters will not go within the time scale you are looking for.

A couple of options available are

1. You can give us a call closer to the time you require a mooring and see what is available if anything.

2. I can put you on a waiting list for an admin fee of £40 - when a spot is available I will contact you but you will have to take and start paying for that spot as soon as it comes available.

As we are full we currently do not have anybody waiting on the list so you will be number 1 if you take option 2.

I would appreciate what option you require if any.  

many thanks

Chris

Panic over then.  I mused over the details of Stanley Ferry - which is a bit silly really given we've been up there 100's of times over the last few years... either walking or pubbing so know it very well.  The only consideration is paying £150 a month to hold a space open for the somewhat open ended period of the build.  

When Andy came in from work we had a bit of a discussion and decided  to apply the "oh stuff it let's just do it' approach and I pressed the "buy it now" button... now we need to sit and wait patiently (again... have you noticed there's a lot of this "waiting around" in the boating world?) until the CRT office opens on Monday morning for them to get back to me and begin their process.

So there we have it - another example of fate altering things but the outcome being perfectly palatable anyway... AND once again, we'll convince ourselves this is what we wanted all along and roll with it... whoever  it was that said I can't be flexible, clearly doesn't know what they are talking about ;-) 

At some point today, we'll have a walk up there and chat to a few people to see if we can work out exactly where this 57'1" space is - I'm going to have to get better at parking though as 1/2 and inch back and front is not a lot of manoeuvring space is it? 

Until next time...