A pleasant run back to Mercia

After a quiet night at Barton Turn, we were up betimes and boating just after eight. It was Sheila’s turn to steer and she decided to wind in the mouth of the marina rather than spend a half hour each way plodding along by the side of the A38 to the winding hole at Wychnor.

It turned out to be quite feasible, though there’s only just room for a 70 footer to get round and there had to be a certain amount of backing and filling. The weather has been glorious today, summer’s last fling, I suspect, and we had a very pleasant run through Burton and back to Willington.

I was doing the locking, but met boats at most of them so it was light work. The only hassle was a fisherman who had chosen to set up on the wing wall of Branston Lock. This one’s always a bit of a pain for the lockwheeler to get back on anyway; in the end, Sheila came out of the lock and just put the bow onto the lock landing further down, neatly avoiding the shallows beyond.

I baked a few more petits pains to top up the bread supply and checked out the shoreline connector I had cleaned up the other week. It still looked fine inside; I’ve put a bit of Vaseline on the mating surfaces of the two halves of the connector to make doubly sure it stays dry in there.

By now we were about 45 minutes out from Mercia; I had time to grab some lunch and take over the helm for Sheila to do the same. She finished as we got through Willington village and went to the bow, leaving me to handle the entry to the marina and getting back onto the pontoon.

I’m pleased to say both of these went off quite well, particularly as I had a substantial audience for the latter, it being a sunny Sunday. Geoff and Black Pearl are back in alongside us so we took a bit of time for a catch up natter with him before buttoning up the boat.

I also opened up the weed hatch; the tiller had been shaking quite a bit as we finished the trip. I found a load of parcel strapping wrapped round the prop shaft which needed the application of the trusty side cutters to remove.

We’ve since had a walk round the marina and were pleased to see that planting has started round Walnut Lodge.

A celebratory ice cream seemed called for, so we got them from the Still Waters shop along with today’s paper.

Tomorrow, into Derby for a variety of purposes.