When I took Buddy out for
his pre-breakfast walk I had a look around Nelson’s Wharf to see how Steve’s
restoration work has been getting on since we were last here.
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Arm completely restored with some of
the kilns exposed on the far side
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Apparently, the arm used
to terminate under the lime/cement works but without a winding hole, so the working
boats used to be reversed back out of the arm.
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One of the old kilns
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Karen now has two weeks
working from the boat before submitting her final invoice and we can move out
of the area. As she often works from the
boat we are used to mooring in spots with good internet connection. Unfortunately, Nelson’s Wharf was not one of
those places, so we decided to move the boat on Monday to a spot on the main
canal just down from Nelson’s.
Before we moved I went
into the training centre to sit my CEVNI test which, fortunately, I passed with
a healthy 93% 😊 Whilst I was there I picked up our helmsman’s
certificates:
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Now I have passed my CEVNI
as well I can now apply for my International Certificate of Competence to
enable me to drive the boat on the continent. As I said the other day, Karen will do hers
in a few weeks.
Whilst Karen had some work
calls Buddy and I went to move the car in the pouring rain. The rain had started on Sunday morning and it
seems to have rained ever since as every time we have woken up in the last two
nights we could still hear the rain. In
fact, it’s still raining this Tuesday morning as I sit here writing the blog.
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As it was now lunchtime,
Karen drove the boat to our new mooring to have a break from working
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Once on the move we
decided to moor at Tomlow instead so carried on cruising for a while. When we were moored up again Karen got back
to work, and I set about getting rid of about 20 litres of used engine oil that
we haven’t managed to get rid of and other assorted rubbish hanging around in
the engine bay.
It wasn’t until I was
ready to load the car to take everything down to the Stockton tip that I realised
that the car was in the wrong place. I had moved it in the morning to where we
were going to moor and then we had changed our minds and moored elsewhere. That meant a rapid walk back to get the car;
time was tight as the tip closes at 3.30 and wouldn’t be open again until next
Saturday. As it was I made it OK and no one questioned that I was disposing of
double the monthly allowance of used oil.
Whenever we moor at Tomlow
in the spring we have always noticed how vociferous the sheep are in the
surrounding fields. This year seems to
be no exception and they were going full pelt when I got back – don’t get me
wrong, we love the sound. They get
especially loud when the farmer arrives to do his regular checks on the lambs
as they think they are going to get fed which, I suppose, sometimes they do.
Later on, we all went for
a walk to pick up some eggs from a lady we always buy them from when we are in
the area. She lives right next to the
bridge that is currently closed having its parapets repaired.
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Road obviously closed
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As we were chatting to her
three cars came up and turned around – clearly ignoring the road closed signs
further back down the lane. She said
that over the weekend, that as well as cars, she had two horse boxes and two
cars with caravans turn around in her drive!
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Our mooring for this week
at Tomlow
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Unusually, we are sharing
this stretch with other boats, a plastic boat and a sail away broadbeam which
you can just see in the distance in the picture above; we normally have the
place to ourselves. The broadbeam is in
rather a selfish spot because the vegetation on the opposite bank is nearly
reaching over to him. It’s not easy to
get by on a narrowboat without hitting the bushes, let alone another broadbeam
trying to pass.
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Even though it's constantly raining it seems that every time we look out of the window we see a great crested grebe. I've no idea of the gender but it clearly hasn't found a mate yet.
In the evening we went
over to Stratford for our penultimate bridge evening, so it was a little sad as
we realised we were nearly at the end of a weekly experience that had developed
over the last two years ☹
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