Not quite as planned

Up bright and early. All packed up and breakfasted. Car collected the previous evening. Started out only about ten minutes later than planned. Just over half-way to the airport we realised we'd left the children's passports back in Erin Mae.

What a sick feeling! There was no time to go back and get them. We pushed on to the airport anyway,  to see whether SAS could hold out any hope of them travelling without their documents (they couldn't), and to talk through other options face-to-face if not.

Three new SAS tickets were going to cost the earth and, anyway, their reservations department wasn't picking up the phone. So we went for plan B and bought three tickets with Norwegian, our normal airline for visits to Oslo. They were much cheaper. However, since Norwegian doesn't offer a service for unaccompanied children, one of us would have to travel with them and return later in the week. That bumped the price up a bit! So my best beloved will have a couple of days in Oslo. And I shall have some solitary time on Erin Mae.

We thought we'd turn this disaster to some purpose, and came back to the boat via Skipton. I'd been telling Elissa about the Shakespeare First Folio in the keeping of the Craven Museum. In our time in Skipton we hadn't found the time to pay a visit to see it, and now seemed an ideal opportunity to do so. We parked in Morrisons' car park, the better to facilitate shopping for the extra meals we would now have to provide, and walked in the rain up to the museum. Double disaster! Tuesday is the one day it's closed. I mulled over whether we might fit in a visit tomorrow on our way to Manchester, and was chatting about it with one of the museum's employees in the gift-shop. Lo and behold, she went off and arranged there and then with the museum's curator for a private viewing of the First Folio for my best beloved and Elissa. What a star!

So now we're all back on Erin Mae for an extra night. It's wet outside, but the boys are doing stuff with card and crayons and clay. Elissa's finished the books she brought with her, but fortunately there's a couple extra we'd bought for her.

Hope tomorrow is a bit less interesting!