Tuesday 22nd March
Today we have travelled 10 miles and 2 locks from Nottingham to the pontoon moorings at Gunthorpe. This was a very pleasant trip as the weather was absolutely gorgeous. It did take somewhat longer than anticipated however. This was due to the debacle that was Barry and Barbara’s water stop at Stoke Bardolph Lock!
This should have been a simple task but turned out not to be. I phoned ahead to the lock to find out where the tap was so B and B would know where to go. It is on the right hand side just before the lock. I told the lock keeper there were 2 of us but 1 would be getting water. He said he would open the lock anyway and we could go in and wait. So we went in to the lock and B and B moored at the tap. The lock keeper asked us who was getting water. As we were in the lock it obviously wasn’t us! We pointed back to the tap where Barry was just about to scale the high wall to get to it and the lock keeper said the tap wasn’t working! Why he didn’t tell me that when I phoned I don’t know. Anyway he directed B and B to the opposite side of the lock approach and after some time locating a hose which would reach and a connector ran a hose from the sink in the sanitary station.
To say this was a slow fill would be an understatement, the water could barely crawl out of the end of the hose! After about half an hour B and B were losing the will to live and stopped trying to fill the tank completely. I suspect we may have been there another half an hour for that! The lock keeper kept wandering up and down saying ‘We’ve got all day.’ Bless, we think he needed the company.
We eventually got to Gunthorpe and moored easily on the pontoon moorings. These have filled up since we arrived. After a cup of tea we adjourned to ………………….. yes the pub! How well you know us.
Later in the afternoon Barbabra and I walked to East Bridgeford for a paper and to give Kizzy a walk. While I was gone Ken managed to behead one of my duck ornamants with a china chicken! I just can’t leave him unattended.
Tomorrow we are off to Newark and a better water point we hope.
