Mark came through the ice
on Tuesday morning on his way to the end of his round at the Saltisford
arm in Warwick. He topped us up with diesel and we
had a good laugh about how I struggled lugging the bags of coal from the car to
the boat yesterday. If you hadn’t read
it, I thought he was heading in the opposite direction and therefore drove to
his yard to pick up some coal on Monday.
25kg bags are heavy for me especially once I have walked them up a lock,
along the towpath and swung them onto the roof.
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Mark filling us up with
diesel whilst I went and set Welsh Road lock for him
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He had come down a few
locks first thing and all the bottom gates had been left open. It is frustrating when this happens,
especially if you’re a working boat where time is money. We both remarked how it’s beginning to feel
like cruising on the River Lee to the east of London where it is the norm to leave
gates open when you leave locks.
As it was time for Buddy’s
morning walk I picked up a windlass and we walked along with Mark to see him
through a few locks to save him some time.
A young couple, Lewis and
Hannah, were moored in front of us and I had got chatting with him on
Monday. He works from the boat and they
have spent the last 18 months cruising around the country. Hannah has now taken a job at High Wycombe so
they are on their way down there to cruise around that area. I fear they will find it quite busy compared
to here. We haven’t been south since the
end of 2014 and by all accounts the number of boats, especially liveaboards,
has rocketed due to the squeeze on house prices.
Lewis asked if there were any fuel boats on this section and I told him he was lucky as one was coming through on Tuesday. I gave him Mark's number so he could place an order. He was going to be
out all day on Tuesday so he asked if he could give me some cash to pay
Mark - I just love that sort of trust in people.
Over the last few weeks we have sorted out some
stuff that we weren’t using and therefore taking up valuable boat space. I had the car on Tuesday so I could take it
to our storage facility in Redditch which I did in the afternoon. When I got back I took
Buddy for a walk back to Stockton and noticed that all the top lock gates had
been left open – obviously another Londoner had been through!
Apart from asking how cold
it is on a boat, some people ask about how we manage to get all the food to
feed the dog. We’re lucky in that Buddy
eats dry food. A bag lasts a month so we
buy two or three bags at a time. I
bought two when I was at Redditch as we were just about to run out.
I'm hoping to have a day cruising this week as we are planning on getting to Warwick for the weekend as Mike and Lesley are joining us for the day. I'll move today if another boat comes through to break the ice first. Actually, thinking about it, Mark will be on his way back and a little bit of ice doesn't stop a fuel boat!
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| Ducks hoping for food on the ice this morning |
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