Janet's Blog – Autumn 2025

Well, the beautiful bright and sunny summer has now evolved into a chilly but amazingly colourful autumn and apparently this year the leaves are going to be even more colourful than usual. They are certainly starting to look pretty stunning around the marina.

Another aspect of autumn is it’s time for the Southampton Boat Show and this year, for the first time since my childhood we popped down there for a day to help on the inland waterways stand. It was really interesting meeting such a range of people, all of which were fascinated by the narrowboat from Ovation Boats which was on display. I even almost got to speak to Princess Anne, who came to visit the stand – I say almost, as I was stood a mere couple of feet away from her and was smiling like mad and trying to look like a good ambassador of inland boating, whilst she chatted to our good friend Rob Parton, who is the president of British Marine. She seemed genuinely interested and even mentioned that she’d spent the day aboard when her lady in waiting had been on a narrowboat holiday.

Back at the marina we had a visit from someone who moored with us when we first opened for a couple of years then moved on to do a different area – they commented on how much more mature the planting on the site was and how great it looked. For Angus and I it’s been like watching a child grow up – you just don’t notice how much they grow and change. I’ve long come to realise that it’s best to take photos have to take photos then look at them again to remind myself just how much everything has matured.

All our autumn jobs will start kicking in soon – tidying up, jetty washing etc and getting on top of all the things we’ve been too busy to do over the summer. The dry summer hasn’t been kind to our footpaths many of which have cracked as the ground dried out and we’ve got someone coming in to repair them. In the office, the C word has been mentioned, and apparently I’m banned from even mentioning tinsel this year. As the nights draw in and it starts to get that bit colder, it’s time to hunker down.. at home we’ve just picked some apples and I’m on apple crumble production – the trouble is I just can’t keep up with the family consumption. The damson gin has been made, and the log burner is back in use. We truly are lucky in the UK to have these different seasons – they bring so many different aspects to the year, so much variety and when the sun does shine, in any season, so much to be grateful for.