Tuesday 23rd February

For us, quite a busy day! Lovely blue sky first thing – a good encouragement to get the day started. I have become particularly fond of my breakfast in bed routine of a crumpet with nut butter and banana. Truth be told R probably likes his breakfast at the dinette table alone so that he can start the day with a bit of peace! We needed to return to the MK marina to fill up with water and diesel, do the necessary at the Elsan and use the laundrette. I hadn’t realised how far up the canal we had moored. It took 40mins to turn around and return down the canal to the marina. It was windy as well as sunny. I had decided to take the plastic covered roll of foam that separates our mattress from the wall in our cabin and put it on the roof to dry out and air. As we were travelling along R pulled a large branch of tree from the water and started to saw off some of the smaller branches. A puff of wind caught the main branch when he wasn’t holding it and plop back into water it fell at the same time as the plastic roll of foam also blew off the roof. Although we managed to rescue it I now no longer want it! The plastic was not watertight so the foam will be fairly wet with canal water and difficult to dry out. Think we need to find a large dustbin! Manoeuvring the boat so that we were able to fill up with diesel was a bit tricky as the wind kept blowing us off course when reversing. Then, while the washing was tumble drying we re- entered the canal from the marina in order to use the waterpoint. The flow was slow so it took a longish time. Meanwhile I walked back to the laundrette and collected the clean clothes. By the time I returned we were ready to go. I think it had taken two hours just to replenish our utilities! We travelled up the canal to reach the mooring we had sussed out yesterday with good signal and a pretty view. On one side of us is Willen Park with a couple of large lakes that we will explore tomorrow and on the other side an enormous park with among many other things an open air theatre, a cricket pitch, a maze, gardens, bike trail, and sheep grazing on a hillside. The hill was a bit of a surprise! I didn’t think MK had any of those. One end of the park gives a great view of the nearby skidome and the park adjoins the central business area. There was an amazing circular monument with marble posts planted within the piazza noting special days in the year, such as Concrete cow day, poetry day, St Andrew’s day etc, with the most recent post being ‘Covid 19’, dateless at present. The Willen lake side also has a fairly large outdoor theme park which is obviously closed. It is in close proximity to where we are moored and I would imagine is usually busy and noisy with young families and excited children. It is blissfully silent for us but there is a sadness in that as it reinforces the effects of this pandemic on everyday life.

Had a cup of tea on the stern end of the boat and met our neighbour, a plumber, who has been moored in the same place for months. He goes on a trip every so often to Wolverton and back to do his laundry and sort his facilities. He’s lived on his boat about eleven years pottering between Milton Keynes and Leighton Buzzard in the winter and then taking trips a bit further afield in the summer, but it doesn’t sound like he’s gone very far north. He goes in tandem with the friend who lives on the boat next to his. We have come across quite a few boaters who have paired up together as couples but still have their own boat for space. Seems quite a good idea!

Poor R did get rather an odd supper. When I had the oven on yesterday to roast a chicken I took the opportunity to use up a couple of eggs in a savoury baked egg dish with veg. A bit like a quiche without the pastry. Then I thought today to go with the egg I would cook quinoa and add mushrooms and spinach whereas I actually cooked millet by mistake. I did suggest we ate the ‘quiche’, as it was cold, before the millet but R said he’d like them together. However he did remark, as it took him rather a long time to finish his supper, that although he generally liked quiche, he meant the pastry!

Often bridge on a Tuesday evening but everyone was a bit busy so instead we watched the end of ‘Unforgotten’. It caused R and I to have quite a moral debate about children who have suffered serious abuse who as adults then take the law into their own hands for justice. For light relief we finished the evening with an episode of ‘Death in Paradise!’

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