Left at 09:45
arrived at 14:00.
Fathers day. Derek up at 6 30 walked the dogs, I got up at
7. 45. Derek got a nice bottle of
Chateauneuf-du-Pape (its all French to me) and a card from Matt, Sarah and
Niamh and 2 lovely cards from Sarah, Chris and team Taylor with a big box of
Thorntons (tonights tv treats sorted. I
did Him a little ditty (yes I know hes not my dad) here it is anyway :-On the
good NB Esmerelda, what stories we could tell ya!!! Leading the way up the River Trent, grounded
with a bump we went!! No need to panic or be scared, the Captains motto is be
prepared? A little bit of backward thinking??? And we were off the sandbank in
a winking!! From the Captains Mate !!!!! Corny of what.We decided to fill up
with diesel, a little NB Guinevere! Was at the pumps. They were over there to get a canal licence
but he hadn’t got the correct paperwork (they have to have sight of your
licence and safety certificate). His wife had gone back to their mooring to
pick up the car and then go to get the papers.
Thats the problem with boats, no trusty car to get you back quickly to
where you want to be in the real world.
There were a few boats coming and going, we were on our way for 9 50. NB
Nuthatch (it had lovely painting of a bird on the side) the lady on the back
was sitting with the skipper and she had a large greyhound wrapped round her
knee, he didn’t look happy at all. We
shared the Derwent Water lock with Guinevere, the locks today are big locks and
very heavy. The lady of the boats
husband (who we met at the petrol pumps) was called Derek too Derek found out
he was 80 and they spent 6 months of the year abroad, came home and had little
trips out on the boat. We went through
the village of Shardlow, which is a lovely village. It has a marina outside
then lots of boats moored in the village and a heritage museum, so all in all
it is very boat centred. Theres a
lovely little cottage on the right hand side of the lock as you approach it. It
has a lovely garden and conveniently the path leads to the pub.!!!! The othe side near the towpath has a very
large house called Riverside, it was being renovated last time we came and boy
have they done a good job. They have
built an extension on the side with a vast window opening on to the
garden. The extension has coving style
decorative tiles under the edge of the roof and ridge tiles that all match the
original building, its gorgeous. The canal is on one side and the river on the
other and of course nosy boaters like me passing by. The air is full of flying
seeds like little snowflakes and the water looks as if a layer of snow is on it
, or if your being fanciful like me, the fairies have landed. Now we’re getting even weirder, approaching a
bridge and there is man dressed like an astronaut (white suit, visor etc)
actually beekeepers gear.? He is trying to collect a swarm of bees from round a
pillar on the bridge, agh. Batten down the hatches. Next lock went well (Aston) we both
remembered that we met a group of strangely dressed individuals (top hats,
ribbons and frock coats) they were mummers doing the festival rounds,that was
when we were last here. Saw first field with oilseed rape and poppies in it,
unfortunately didn’t get picture. Next
lock there was one man coming down (Me and Mrs Guinevere) penned him down,
there was then a rush of two man canoeists, getting out at the top of the lock,
carrying their boats down to the bottom and jumping back in and paddling
off. Must have been 15 or more in total,
they were on some kind of race , all had appropriate safety wear, maps and
bottles of refreshments in their boats, it was very amusing and obviously very
hard work. It was a long and winding
way to the next lock, saw a lovely family of swans, mum dad and 7 cygnets, they
were really pale grey which is quite
unusual. We had had a few raindrops but it was quite warm and only a few grey
clouds gathering and with the birds singing it was very pleasant. I was getting peckish and the plan was to
stop after the next lock so a short day today all being well. At the last lock it was really heavy going,
got it all set for the boats to enter and a large man appeared with a windlass
in his backpack. Not sure what that was
about.? We opened the ground paddles at the top gate and as it is a very deep
lock waited for the water to get above the cill, about half full, before
opening gate paddles. The big guy
stepped forward to give Mrs Guinevere a hand if she needed one. A Rust bucket,
NB arrived at the other side of lock waiting to come down. One of the guys from
that boat(a small framed asian man) went to the towpath side and spoke to Mrs G
about how he thought the locks could be more efficient (she told him she
thought the builders of the lock new what they were doing and they had worked
pretty well for hundreds of years so far)
Mrs G started to climb over the gates to me, we had opened the gate
paddles partly by now. As she came
across the young man put the paddles back down, surely that was going to make
the job a lot longer. The big guy lifted
them again and the boats came to the top.
We decided that we would leave both the gates open for the rust bucket
to give him something to do. Thats another 1st and hopefully last,
incident of that sort, we both said we have never had someone interfere with
our locking before and don’t want to see it again. We were fastened up for 2 12, both starving
as we had not had lunch yet. We got the
tele and I finished the roses on the backdoors and panels. I will do the picture panels later as I need
longer to concentrate on them.
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