Noisy night, windy day, nice marina

After a reassuring visit to the clinic, I got back to the boat just as Elanor and Sally turned up. They hopped on board, and we set off in the direction of Willington. It's been a while since Sally was actually boating with us, and she thoroughly enjoyed it, standing on the bow locker shouting insults at the ducks and, when she saw other dogs on the towpath, sitting down with her nose in the air as we glided past.

They abandoned ship as we passed the Mill House pub, so that they could have a good walk back to Elanor's house, and we chugged on. We'd originally intended to get just out of the built up area, stopping at Egginton wharf, say, but it was a lovely afternoon for boating, with the forecast not nearly so good for today, so we decided to go a bit further, leaving ourselves less to do in poorer conditions.

We stopped near Bridge 25, by the big ex-gravel pit there; we've stopped there before, and it seemed like a good idea to do so again. With hindsight, we should have gone just a bit further on, through the bridge, despite the lure of the Armco on the Burton side (you have to use pins on the other side).

The mooring was affected by both the road noise from the A38, and the train noise from the Burton – Derby line. What's more, as the night went on, Sanity Again snuggled up to the bank a bit more and sat up on a rock, so that there was a grinding noise from below the stern all night.

It didn't encourage a good night's sleep, and we were glad when the dawn arrived. A quick chug took us on to Willington, where there was plenty of space on the 48 hour mooring. The original plan had been to reverse the route tomorrow, as Sheila has a clinic appointment in the afternoon, but with winds of 25mph gusting 48mph forecast, we're going to sit tight and get Elanor to provide a taxi service.

If things have calmed down by Friday, we'll go back to Branston then, probably.

Meantime, we took a walk to Mercia Marina this afternoon, since we had it in mind to spend next winter there. It is indeed a very nice place, and a moorer we spoke to in the laundry was very enthusiastic about it. The facilities look to be even better than Great Haywood, with the services blocks closer to the pontoons.

What's more, if we booked straight away, we'd get it at this year's prices, slightly less than we've just paid at Great Haywood, so that's what we did.