Friday 20th September
We have returned to Mercia Marina today after a very pleasant few days in Gunthorpe. We stayed at The Unicorn Hotel with Mum and Dave from Tuesday 17th until today. We had to catch 3 buses to get there from the marina – The V3 fromWillington to Derby, the Red Arrow from Derby to Nottingham and the Nottingham City Transport no 47 from Nottingham to Gunthorpe. The whole journey took 2.5 hours. We discovered that had we have got the Radcliffe Line instead of the no 47 we could have saved half an hour so we decided we would get that one back on Friday.
On Wednesday we went to Newstead Abbey and although the house was closed (it’s only open at weekends) we had a good look round the grounds and gardens in lovely sunny weather. The gardens are still worth a look even though they have lost a lot of their summer colour. Of course I took loads of photos!
After the Abbey we went just across the road and met John and Kath (friends of Mum and Dave who live nearby) in The Hutt, a large hotel/pub which is housed in a rather grand building (no photo though). After one pint we went to The Burnt Stump for further libation (no photo of that either). I was designated driver, it is 8 months since I have driven but I soon got back into the swing of it.
Thursday we went to Southwell Minster where I was allowed to take photos inside the minster with my phone but not with my camera, for what ever reason! I did take several photos with my phone, however, I can not seem to locate the lead with which to connect my phone to my computer to upload them so they will remain a mystery!
When we emerged from the minster it was raining hard and as we scuttled off to the car I took a few rather bad exterior shots with the camera. Next stop was The Bromley Arms at Fiskerton, a pub which we have passed while cruising on the River Trent but have never visited. Unfortunately it was too wet to sit outside which was a pity. It had stopped raining by the time we came out though so we got a few photos.
We had a good trip home today catching the Radcliffe Line at 9-30 am, the Chesterfield Red Arrow (which goes via Derby) at 10-30 am (we narrowly missed the Derby one at 10-20 am) and because the V3 was 10 minutes late (it was due to leave Derby at 11-00 am) we managed to catch that as well. We got back to Willington at 11-30 am.
We have a few things to do tomorrow so we are staying here and leaving on Sunday to start our trip back to the Gloucester and Sharpness canal for the winter.
