Wednesday 3rd June
Today we have travelled 7 miles and 2 locks from Trent Lock to Nottingham and are currently moored near Sainsbury’s.
My back was still a bit dodgy today but I dosed myself up, put my tens machine on and my trusty truss to tackle the locks. We set off and arrived at the first lock at Cranfleet just as a cruiser was starting to fill it. Some cruisers, this one included are too wide to share locks (and are loath to do so even if they aren’t), but it didn’t matter because we needed to fill with water again any way so while they did the lock we used the very slow tap.
By the time they had gone we had finished filling with water and I got the lock ready. Another narrow boat arrived to share with us. Unfortunately they were having engine problems and when they left the lock they had to wait on the lock landing for it to cool down so we went ahead.
They were nowhere in sight when we got to Beeston Lock so we went on our own. Below Beeston Lock is a sanitary station (with a boat moored on it) and on the lock landing was a huge CRT barge so when Ken emerged from the lock there was nowhere to pick me up! He had to point the nose at the wall and I had to leap on as he went past, very energetic, especially with my back the way it was!
We arrived in Nottingham and moored on the 48 hour moorings near Sainsbury’s. No one else seems to want to moor here as there are unrestricted moorings 130m in either direction and they all moor there so we are in the middle all alone!
We decided to leave the shopping until Thursday to give my back a chance to recover some more so we just went off to the Watersedge for a pint and a gongoozle.
We had just got back from there when we had a call from Martyn the clock restorer. We had been liaising with him as to a convenient place for him to come and pick up the clock which Ken inherited from Brenda, that his Grandad had brought back from Turkey in the First World War, for repair.
He turned up about half an hour later and after discussing the clock and what he would be able do with it he asked us to go for a drink with him. So off we went back to the Watersedge for another pint and another gongoozle!
When we got back we then had the anniversary bottle of prosecco with some olives and bread and eventually had dinner about 7-30pm!
I can vaguely remember watching parts of 3 different programmes on tv last night between the naps!
