Sunday 16th March
The weather has been absolutely glorious today and we decided to do the whole 16 mile trip back to Gloucester from Sharpness as it was such a lovely day. We set off quite early and I got on with some more varnishing as I have seen the scenery a few times already!
But things conspired against us as there was a power cut rendering Fretherne Bridge inoperable. We were told of the problem by the bridge keepers at both Splatt and Cambridge Arms bridges so we moored as close as we could get to Fretherne Bridge (which wasn’t actually very close) and walked round to find out what was going on.
We were told that it was an intermittent fault but they couldn’t risk swinging the bridge in case the power went off halfway through the operation. It would be after 1pm before the power would be fully restored. We decided to have a walk to the marina and back then go for a pint.
As we passed the football pitch there was a game going on so we stopped to watch for a while. It turned out to be the Gloucester and District Sunday League, Don King Chairman’s Cup, Semi Final between Frampton United A F C and White City (which is an area of Gloucester) and we ended up watching the whole match including extra time and penalties! Unfortunately Frampton lost 3-4 on penalties.
By this time it was 1 pm, well past pub time so we went to The Bell which we could see from the football pitch! It was very busy with it being such a nice day. After a couple of pints we went back to the boat and as the bridge was working again we went through it and Sandfield Bridge hoping to get to the water point and elsan disposal at Saul Junction but the world and his wife were there so we went through Junction Bridge as well and moored in our favourite place again.
Ken did a bit of (unsuccessful) fishing while I cooked the dinner. We will do the rest of the trip to Gloucester tomorrow.