A busy day, and a quiet day

3rd & 4th June

First off, a note to thank John for his comment last time, repeated here for those who didn't see it:

If you do go that way again, you would make the journey through Leicester less of a slog if you were to moor overnight below King's Lock. We did that following local advice and spent a perfectly quiet night with no sign of troublesome population. The problem area apparently starts at St Mary's Mill Lock where at one time it was reported that gangs of youths engaged in "steaming" if folk left both ends of the boat open. I hasten to add that we had no threatening behaviour anywhere on our journey through the city.

I did notice that there was a rural stretch just downstream of Kings, and Agapé had tied just above with no trouble. On the other hand, there was a time when Kings was notorious for cars abandoned in the lock, so these things do vary. In urban areas, we always cruise with the bow doors locked, to avoid the risk of steaming.

Yesterday we had a relaxed start on a much cooler day. We made uneventful progress down the three locks to Sileby Mill, below which is a boatyard. We tied on the tanker barge which is their service wharf, and I found the office open and inhabited by one Sandra Morloy, who readily agreed to provide a pump out and diesel.

The only thing was, she wanted us to wind to put the pump out point against the side of the barge. There's a marked weir stream coming down past the yard, and we had an interesting time getting Sanity around. It was done at last, though Sheila made it clear it was not her favourite boat handling situation.

Sandra then set up the pump out, which goes through a pump on the barge to a pipe in the hard standing alongside. The output from the pump just slots into a piece of plastic downcomer type pipe, and soon after starting up, sewage began gushing merrily back out of the pipe.

"It's blocked" said Sandra, a lightning diagnosis. There followed an interesting period of rodding the open pipe, latterly supervised by Charlie, who eventually managed to persuade it to flow properly. They kept apologising for the delay, but we hadn't had so much entertainment for, oh, at least two days.

After pumping out, we took 120 litres of diesel, and were able to declare our current split of 20/80 with no trouble. I think I'm going to add Sileby Mill to my favourite boatyards page, if only for the sheer entertainment value. (They are really nice and welcoming folk.)

Whilst all this was going on, Steve and Mandy Locke on Shield Maiden came past, and we had a brief shouted conversation with them. We hope to see them later in the year, either at Redhill or the Owners' Weekend.

Off we went again, finding the reverse winding much easier (the answer is to turn clockwise across the weir stream). On our way down to Barrow on Soar, we passed Trundle going the other way, and had an encouraging cry of "Keep blogging!" It is nice to be appreciated, thank you.

The first set of visitor moorings at Barrow were full, but we found good mooring just above the Deep Lock, handy for the walk up to the village, which has a butcher and a Somerfield.

In fact, these moorings are so nice, we've stayed here all day today. We had a really lazy morning after a walk up to the village. We've repacked the life jackets, read the paper, and I've cut Sheila's hair. Oh, and cleaned the boots.

Apart from that, we've just loafed, relaxing in the happy knowledge that the fuel tank is full and the waste tank empty. A wash load has been run, and tomorrow we'll tootle off to Loughborough and Zouch (pronounced "Zotch"). We are trying to lose a bit of time, as we don't want to overnight in Nottingham at the weekend.