Busy morning, quiet afternoon

Our whole day's been a bit time shifted, but then the clocks go back tonight, so that's not a bad idea anyway.

We started with the Boater's Breakfast in the Willow Tree at half eight, then went back to Sanity Again and got ready for our volunteer work. This involved fishing our life jackets out, then joining Jules and co at the office before rowing a small flat bottomed boat out of the marina and along the cut a bit towards Stenson. There, three of us worked in the boat cutting back the offside vegetation, whilst another three stayed on the towpath. When the boat was full of greenery we pushed across to the other side and unloaded the stuff to be cut into smaller bits and disposed of in the hedgerow.

We did a couple of hours at this, which was quite enough, and substantially improved the state of the channel between Potlucks Bridge (the footbridge) and the railway bridge. Then we first towed and then rowed/paddled the boat back to leave it on the visitor moorings in the marina.

This last bit got quite interesting, as the strengthening wind was dead on the bow, and the supplied oars were rather short with small blades. It finally worked better to use them as paddles, Canadian canoe style.

Apart from Jules, who had to go back to work in the office, we all retreated to the Willow Tree once more for restorative coffees and hot chocolates.

Back on Sanity Again at half one, we had a small belated lunch (the Boater's Breakfast was more than adequate to keep us going until then), and we've been lazing around with the paper since.

We're expecting Elanor and Sally, but they've not shown up yet; maybe they are having a time shifted day too...