Back home in Tuscany

Mathew and I returned home on Monday from two weeks in the UK where we spent 10 days on my parents' canal boat travelling from Milton Keynes, north of London, to Hampton where my sister, Annette lives. The canal boat, called the Celtic Kiwi is around 17 metres long and about 2 metres wide – very close quarters but for four people was very adequate and in fact very cosy in the evenings. Mathew had a fantastic time and has a great description of the boat on his blog - so to save myself repeating (and out of sheer laziness!) here is the link to his post about the first part of our trip:

http://mytuscanyoe.blogspot.com/2008/09/grand-union-canal.html

Below are a few photos from our trip down the canal. All in all, a great holiday and I've come home with very toned arms due to all the locks we had to open and close! The UK was cold so we are very pleased to be back to 30 degrees plus.

While we were away, Ralph, Ana and Ralph's parents (visiting from Vienna while we were away) were adopted by a puppy (we think about 3 months old). We're not sure where he comes from but he has been with us now for over a week, despite us encouraging him to move on. We have had to feed him so we don't go to bed feeling guilty every night, so I think he's settling in. We've reported him to the local community police who are now trying to locate the owner. They asked us to babysit him until such time - hopefully it's before December! Here he is...no name yet except "Arrivederci"! (And for all you animal lovers - he's only tied up as he loves nipping at Ana's nose and he and she are the perfect sizes for it!!).