Choosing a marina

Today, Monday, was our introduction to English rain.  In fact, it was the first day we've ever spent in the UK where it rained all day.  It was raining when I opened my eyes this morning and it's still raining now at 7pm.  There has been not a moment today that it wasn't raining.  Tonight on the news there's talk of flooding in various locations. 

We intended to spend the day driving around visiting marinas.  We had been to Great Haywood (as well as a couple of others) on Saturday and would have loved to moor there for the Winter.  Unfortunately there were no vacancies.  So, we were on a mission to find an alternative.   There needs to be somewhere easily accessible for milk, bread or other emergency food supplies, a nearby village within easy walking distance, a bus stop close by and a train station within walking or easy bus distance.  That ruled out many of the marinas we've checked out on the internet.

Today we started out with Mercia - it was the furthest from Ormskirk where we are staying.  We, and our Tom Tom navigator, totally underestimated the traffic on the M6.  We should have avoided that motorway altogether - it took us close on 3 1/2 hours to get there!!!  Luckily we really liked it despite it being such a huge marina.  We did go look at one more for comparison but decided to book in at Mercia.  The marina holds 585 boats which is absolutely enormous.  On site there is a narrowboat broker, a cafe, a small shop and a chandlery as well as a hire boat base.  There is more than one amenities block and we have a berth near to one of them.

The new toy (iPad) served us well today as we had a couple of last minute change of plans due to the traffic. We looked up and rang several of the marinas.  The Three mifi thingy worked a treat too.  I still have to find a new smart phone and a printer for my "office" on the boat.