Tuesday 15th October
It’s been a lovely day today after the rain of the last few days and we have moved all of another 3.5 miles! It would have been less but we had to abandon our first mooring and move again due to – wasps!
We travelled to Saul Junction first and used the facilities then we went through Sandfield Bridge and found one mooring spot free between there and Fretherne Bridge so we moored up. We were just having a toasted sausage sandwich when we found out the reason why the space was free, there was suddenly a load of wasps all buzzing about outside the windows.
I looked out and could see the hole in the grass where they were coming from. It would seem that I had trampled their nest when we were mooring up. It was obvious we couldn’t stay there, trapped in the boat, so after we had finished our sandwiches Ken went out bravely to get us underway again. I sat cowering inside like a girlie (well I am a girlie) but after my previous experience with a wasps nest when I was ‘indisposed’ on the Langollen a couple of years ago I wasn’t taking any chances!
I emerged from the depths of the boat when we were well away from the bank. We turned round and headed back to the other side of Saul Junction and moored up again. As it was such a nice day, one where we should have been doing something useful, we decided to go for a walk along the River Frome to Whitminster where someone had told us there was a nice pub.
It was a very pleasant walk, 2 miles or so to Whitminster and began alongside the Stroudwater Canal opposite the marina, crossed the road and carried on along the river bank. We found the nice pub, called the Fromebridge Mill, which has been a corn mill, cider mill and more recently a place supplying animal feed. There is a riverside garden and some of the original mill workings are preserved inside. As it was quite warm we sat on the patio overlooking the mill pond.
After a couple of pints of Abbott we walked back the way we had come but on the opposite bank of the river. When we got back I did do one useful thing – hoovering! Maybe we will get something done one day but not tomorrow because tomorrow it is supposed to be raining again in the morning so we are going to Gloucester on the bus from outside the Marina.
