Friday 1st November and Saturday 2nd November
We left Rea Bridge yesterday morning and travelled the 2.5 miles back to Gloucester and moored by the lightship again. We didn’t bother to stop at Sainsbury’s as we can go there on Monday when we leave.
We didn’t do much except get some fish from the market (we had hake this time and it was very good) and go to the railway station to pick up our tickets for Southampton. On our way back from the station, outside Chambers, next to The Regal, we stopped for a chat with a lovely brown and white Bull Terrier called Albert. He was a gorgeous boy.
We went in The Regal after our chat and sat on a large table upstairs by the door. We were joined by a couple with a rather drunk friend who was waiting for a lift home. After they had gone we were joined by a nice older couple from Ross on Wye and we had a very interesting time talking to them, mostly about all the Wetherspoons we had all visited!
Today started off really nice, calm and sunny so we decided to walk to the Eastern Avenue Retail Park to order my new washing machine and tumble drier from Curry’s. We did our usual trick of looking up the directions on the internet and then completely forgetting what they were and heading off in totally the wrong direction.
What should have been a 2 mile walk turned into 4 miles at least as we went the wrong way when we came out of Gloucester Park and ended up going down Stroud Rd (in the opposite direction to what we should have been going) and got totally lost. We spotted a postman and asked him for directions to Eastern Avenue, he seemed amused that we were going to walk it, obviously he knew how far it was!
We had just got on to Eastern Avenue when it started raining so we had to stop and put our waterproofs on. We eventually arrived at Curry’s after about an hour and a half of walking! We located what we wanted and a very nice lady came and served us. We have arranged for delivery on Monday 11th November between 7am and 11am, we’ll have to be up early just in case.
Because we went the right way this time, the walk back only took 30 minutes and it had stopped raining. We dropped in to the New Inn for a pint but as usual their beer was not the best so after one we decided to try Robert Raike’s House. We haven’t tried it before because from the outside it doesn’t look like a pub it looks more like a restaurant. We were pleasantly surprised to find a lovely pub with lots of separate rooms away from the main bar area to choose from and reasonably priced beer too. All the beers are Samuel Smith’s and we tried a couple of them, very nice. We had a look at the menu which was just basic pub grub at a good price but what we saw coming out looked ok.
By the time we returned to the boat the wind had really got up and there were waves on the dock making it look more like the sea than a dock! It had also started raining again. We hurried back to the boat and saw someone’s life ring floating past, then we realised it was our life ring and had to fish it out quick!
The wind and rain battered us all afternoon, much worse than what we had last week during the ‘storm’. We were beginning to think they would have to cancel the fireworks display but it eased a bit and the display went ahead. We could see most of it quite well from the boat so we didn’t need to brave the elements and actually go outside. We also had our Vangelis cd on as a musical accompaniment.
Tomorrow there is the rowing race so we are staying put until Monday.
