Thursday 13th March
Monday we had to move on from the docks having done our 48 hours mooring. We popped into town to go to the bank and Wilkinson’s then took the boat up to Sainsbury’s. After getting a rather large shop we decided to go to Saul Junction. We moored in our favourite place upstream of Junction Bridge.
After mooring up it was (surprise, surprise) time to go to the pub! We went off to The Bell in Frampton, a nice 30 min walk from where we were moored. On the way we came upon Graham the chimney sweep mooring his boat up. This was a happy coincidence because we had discussed getting the chimney cleaned as it has been over 6 months since Graham did it before and we were going to phone him. We booked to have it done on Thursday when the bridges reopened and we could move to a spot nearer the car park by the visitor centre.
Tuesday morning was a bit cold and misty but Ken carried on with the touch up jobs he had started at the weekend. He painted the bits on the roof he had undercoated and the handrail. The handrail, where we scraped all the paint off turning the wrong way in a tunnel 3 years ago, now looks really nice! There are some bits on the red he has prepared with red oxide but he packed up before he did those because it was really cold. Meanwhile I was titting about with a bit of cleaning!
Wednesday morning it was foggy and cold so Ken decided to tighten the stern tube and clean out round the weed hatch cover instead of painting. I did some cleaning and varnished the kitchen cupboards, the wall under the gunwales and the wood round the cooker. The cooker which is still temperamental in the extreme and stays on if it feels like it!
This morning (Thursday) it was so foggy you couldn’t see a hand in front of your face. It was cold too, made more noticable by the fact that we had to let the fire go out over night because we were having the chimney swept today! We put the central heating on and ran the engine so we could have the fan heater on in the bathroom.
We spotted the bridge keeper, doing his rounds taking down boat names, while we were having breakfast and told him we would need to go through the bridge about 9 am because we were meeting the chimney sweep. When we were turning round I phoned the bridge to let them know we were coming because they couldn’t see us as it was so foggy! Just as I had done that I heard a shout and saw Graham running up the towpath. He said there were no spaces the other side of the bridge as some boats had come out of the marina last night. Could we moor up on the bank where we were? I shouted to Ken who hadn’t spotted Graham and he didn’t know what I was on about so he kept going! Eventually he cottoned on and pulled in to the bank and I had to phone the bridge again to let them know we weren’t coming because they still couldn’t see us in the gloom!
After the chimney was done we needed to go through the bridge to get to the water point and elsan disposal. I phoned the bridge again but got no reply so I walked up there to find the bridge keeper. I spotted a CRT chap but he wasn’t qualified to operate the bridge. The bridge keeper was at Sandfield Bridge testing the remote control equipment so the other chap phoned him and he duly arrived to let us through.
By the time we had done water and loo it was about 11-30 am and the engine had been running for over 3 hours so we just went through Sandfield Bridge and moored up. It was still really foggy so there was little point in travelling any further because we couldn’t see much anyway.
The fog finally lifted mid-afternoon and the sun did have a bit of a try to come out but it was too little too late for us. As fog is forecast for tomorrow morning again we may go back towards Gloucester later tomorrow and do a trip down to Sharpness sometime next week.
We are currently moored opposite the tennis club and there are actually a couple of people playing under floodlights as I type!
