Sunday 19th May
We had a nice lie as planned and got up about 8am. We had been woken by an early bird boater, shouting to his wife about taking a windlass to the lock, at 7-30 am but never mind. In total contrast to yesterday it was a lovely day, sunny and warm. After tea and breakfast Ken disappeared into the bowels of the engine to put another washer on the generator bracket and I went out to survey the damage to the paintwork.
The friendly horse, which had been re-tethered last night was now somehow loose again and came to survey it too! I didn’t want to apply a load of new paint only for it to be nuzzled by my ‘friend’ or get full of horse hairs, I had enough trouble with the flies last time! I decided to make a cup of coffee and think about what I was going to do.
By this time Ken was having a chat with the bloke behind us so I took the coffee outside to him and along came Neddy again to see what I was doing and promptly stood on my foot, ouch! Finally, she went away and I did manage to clean the boat and do a small amount of touching up on the sticking out bits of the boat which were not near the bank. I will do the rest when we are in a more suitable location.
Later on we spent a very pleasant couple of hours sitting outside the Greyhound watching the boats negotiate the turn at the junction. The hotel boat Kerala with its butty Karnataka came round the junction. The helmsmen were doing a perfectly good job but a chap who was having a drink outside the pub insisted on helping by having a rope thrown to him and pulling the front round. He was well excited and kept shouting instructions, it was hilarious!
There was a lovely array of dogs about today including a long haired Jack Russell who eventually, having run out of people to throw his ball, persuaded Ken to do it. After a few throws it ended up in the canal and drifted too far from the bank for us to reach it! He stood on the edge watching it for ages (the dog not Ken) bless.
We also met a couple of gentlemen from Yorkshire, one of whom now lives here and the other who lives in Thorne, a place we moored up in a couple of years ago when we were on the Stainforth and Keadby canal on our way to the Aire and Calder. His family used to be bargees around there years ago. His nephew owns the boat yard in Thorne and he said if we ever went there again to mention we knew Uncle Ken.
Tomorrow we are going to Bedworth on the bus to stock up at Tesco’s.
