It had to happen one day – cup of tea over the duvet! Enough to immediately soak through to bottom sheet. I tried to clean the duvet itself with detergent but didn’t want to get it more wet than necessary as there’s no easy way to dry such a large item on the boat. Wonder if I’ll be offered tea in bed tomorrow!
After spending a quiet morning, I having done my Joe Wicks and R sawing wood, we ventured along the canal looking for the water point. R left the boat to search along the towpath ahead of me. Meanwhile I spotted a large sign saying ‘water , written on a bridge pier, so slowed the boat down in case R hadn’t seen the sign and was too far ahead. I didn’t fancy a long reverse. Suddenly a man’s head appeared at an open window of the house next to the bridge and asked me if I was looking for the water point, which he told me was 100 yds further ahead. Poor guy – he must be leaning out of that window constantly in the summer! The water sign on the bridge is totally misleading!
I found R next to the waterpoint and threw him the midrope to haul the boat into the side of the canal. Or I might actually have pointed the bow at the edge, close enough for R to jump aboard, shimmy along the outside of the boat to grab the midrope himself and then jump back onto the towpath when able. This is the most likely scenario because very early on in our trip it became obvious that I had no throwing skills whatsoever and unless we were going to shout at each other every time we stopped the boat, R had to find another way of getting hold of the rope! It’s worked a treat so far although I do remember the unfortunate dunking he got very soon after our journey began!
Moving onwards through Weedon Bec, which was surprisingly bigger than I anticipated, I spied an attractive church way below the canal on my left, with an A-frame notice board outside the porch, which led me to think the church might be open for daily prayer and to enjoy the tranquility inside. A prominent set of steps led from the towpath down to the church and I made a sudden decision to pull in and visit it. This did require R climbing over the roof of the boat to get the midrope on the correct side and I worried slightly that this might end in disaster. We have learned last minute decisions are not always wise. However in this instance all was well and we moored at the top of the steps. Sadly the church was only open on a Wednesday afternoon, but the sign referred to their food bank, which was open for donations to be left in the porch every day. What an answer to prayer! I had been contemplating the quantity of tins we had accumulated over the months and was not looking forward to taking them home, realising there was no way we can use them all up in two weeks. This is a winwin. I get to lighten the load on the boat and the food bank gets supported. I am learning it is quite a skill to have the optimum amount of food and household necessities on the boat. You really do not want too much of anything and yet you don’t want to be running out of things that will involve popping into a supermarket, as we are all being encouraged to minimise our visits to shops. With the end of our trip in sight I now want to eat as much as I can of the tinned and dried food so I don’t have to lug it home. We may well be moving on to another boat for the final ten days so that’s another reason to lighten the load.
Setting off once again R produced some wraps, for a now late lunch, whilst I took to the helm and we travelled to the next flight of locks, enjoying the solitude and the ease of navigating a wide canal. The canal may have been empty of traffic but this was made up for by the copious amounts of lorries on the very nearby M1 on my right and the enormously long freight trains on my left. We moored up outside Wilton Marina, quite well known for the quantity of secondhand narrowboats it sells. They also have a cafe that we made use of when we came down the GUC in October and moored in almost the same spot. We had hoped to find it open, operating as a takeaway, but when we got to the entrance it was just being locked up as it closed at 3pm. We plan to go back tomorrow morning so that R can have a bacon butty for his breakfast.
We have a slight complication on the boating front in that we may be moving onto another boat so that Wind Rose can be repaired. However Daydream is not quite ready. She isn’t far from here as James told me that she’s moored at the top of this next flight of locks. So we walked the flight in order to take a peak at what may be our next home for a very short while. She was very easy to spot, all in blue, but hard to peer inside as all the curtains were drawn. However we could see through the cover over the bow alot of wood and tools so something is going on but I don’t know how long it will take to finish! The walk did us good though and we were able to assist a single boater with a couple of the locks as he was descending the flight. It’s quite hard work on your own. We were interested to see that he stood on the towpath and pulled his boat out of the lock using the midrope, rather than going down the slippery ladder into the stern, which also involves either walking along the boat roof, or walking along the outside edge, risking all the slime from the chamber walls attaching itself to your clothes. He was grateful for the extra pair of hands.
The sun was still in evidence as we approached the boat and I had visions of watching it set as we sat on the prow with an evening tipple. In my dreams – we were moored out of the sun’s dying rays behind a warehouse shed! At least the internet worked so we could watch the latest episode of Unforgotten followed by an amusing Christmas episode of ‘Keeping up Appearances’.
NarrowboatTLC 