contentedsouls

Up early yesterday morning so that I could enjoy a slow, pottery start to the day in the sunshine. It was nice to hear a ‘voice from home’ on Radio 2 as ‘our Adam’ was on news reading duty – goodness knows what time he had to get up for work, or perhaps he was on nights. The sun also pulled G out of bed so we were underway before 9.00am! We had spotted a good track along this canalised stretch of the river, so I relinquished the tiller to G and set off on foot with Muttley; a lovely walk in pretty countryside accompanied by constant birdsong. It also gave me a chance to take some photos of MR underway for a change.

I tied Muttley up at the lock and was quickly joined by the lockie who wanted to know what I was doing there. It’s not normal for the public to be lock side here – they are expected to gongoozle from roads and bridges. He was a really happy bunny and very interested in MR when she arrived; only problem was that he told me we were going to have a week of glorious weather and it’s raining again! I would have been happy to keep walking but the next lock was marked as a sort of stop lock (probably a ‘toll’ lock once upon a time) and it may not have been possible to get back on the boat there.

At the next (rather deep) lock, the control rod and ladder were in different places again so I put G off at the ladder – I really don’t like him climbing these but we’ll be going downhill soon (that’ll confuse me after months of going up!). You can see how bright the sun was, leaving my photo in silhouette. We took the last mooring downstream of the bridge which is great for the animals as it is just a few motor homes, parkland and the ubiquitous boule pitches. The moorings upstream of the bridge are right outside Aldi and are quite noisy due to a road running alongside the far bank.

G went off on the bike to fetch the car and that left me free to set off into town with my camera. The centre is quite small with hardly any shops but huge palatial buildings. By the time I’d fetched some shopping and we’d popped back into town for a beer the day was pretty much gone and all the other boats on the pontoon had been replaced by an Aussie owned Barge which left first thing this morning leaving us Billy-no-mates.

A bit of work around the boat this morning and then we went out to lunch trying, and failing, to dodge the showers. G needs to try and get an osteopath appointment in the morning as his neck and shoulder are playing up again (I knew I shouldn’t have let him drive the boat yesterday – it’s much too big for him). I’m happy to stay another day as I’ve ‘done’ the town and we’re in a good position – and facing the right way – for me to work on the side hatches; weather permitting of course.

This cat isn’t Daisy, just a look alike