Xmas and going posh(ish)

Xmas kind of happened, as it usually does, and guess what it was at the same time of the year as always too. Nothing too amazing about that. We had an invite to Simon and Nikki's for Xmas eve dinner which was greatly enjoyed.  We then had a quiet Xmas afloat enjoying a little morning walk and then some good food (possibly some fizzy stuff too).

Post the Xmas excesses, we had another one planned though. The Celtic Manor Resort had offered the usual new year deals to try and fill a few rooms on a Sunday night. We'd taken advantage of what was a very good offer and headed over there to sample their 5 star hotel and hospitality. Have a look at Celtic Manor website link for more info.

Being cheapskates, we objected to spending a small fortune on their undercover parking offer so we had a little walk (luckily in the dry) to the building from the far from cheap outside car park. Good service, a great room on the top floor of the building with views over to the Bristol Channel too. OK you also got to see the M4 but didn't hear it luckily. Dinner was booked in the Clubhouse restaurant which is housed, no surprises here, in the golf clubhouse. We resisted picking up any of these trophies to dish out to golfing friends:

Dinner was good but the Tarte Tatin dessert that the captain tried was nowhere near as good as that served at the Pilot, the pub just up the hill from Penarth marina. Naturally it was way more expensive too.

Back in the main hotel, we admired the Xmas train setup that was running around the huge atrium area. This little video shows one small area of it only:

Very intricate and ornate. Quite something as was the timber dragon:

and the view down to the ground from our top floor landing:

The hotel and grounds were beautifully decorated and we were glad we took a couple of pictures that night as the next morning they had all gone. Some folks must have worked rather late that Sunday. A good stay, just disappointing that a 5 star hotel still has a buffet breakfast offering for the hot food in a very crowded breakfast servery area. They need to look at how the Spanish Paradores chain operates!

Maintenance news:

We'd wanted to give the boat a run out for some time, to make sure that all the bits were working properly still. However, the rain deluges that we'd "enjoyed" had washed huge amounts of timber and other debris down the rivers into the bay. There were some monster lumps of timber and big tree branches and trunks floating around  - some half submerged.  We really hadn't wanted to risk damaging our prop on one so we'd not left the berth since our return.

Finally, at the end of December, the worst of the rubbish had been washed ashore or been collected  by the harbour authority guys. So, we got all brave and fired up the electronics and the main engine. Amazingly everything worked OK and we did our usual plodding up and down the bay thing exercising both the main and wing engines:

The route is not terribly exciting but it did feel good to be moving again and feel the boat "alive" underneath us. Returning to the berth we had plenty of weed and junk floating about in the marina too so we had to do everything properly and turn the boat around then back onto our berth with just the use of the main engine. Operating the thrusters would have been too risky - plenty of stuff to drag into them and possibly jam up the blades.  As the water level was low that became a nice challenge since the keel of the boat gets well and truly grabbed by the rampant weed.  One of the few downsides to Penarth. 

The genset was treated to an oil and filter change and the Webasto heating boiler had a new fuel filter as a  late Xmas present as well. We are too kind to these inanimate objects.