Wet and dry

We had a very lazy start this morning, although the forecast rain didn't show up until ten. So we did some serious loafing, catching up with the answers to three weeks worth of Independent giant crosswords and the like.

It did indeed rain quite heavily for several hours. By half ten the batteries were getting down to 80% charge, so I ran the engine for an hour and a half, switching off before we ate lunch.

By now it was feeling a bit chilly and clammy in the boat and lighting the fire seemed a good idea. This meant putting the chimney on and extracting coal and kindling from the box tucked away in the bow locker, but we soon felt the benefit.

Shortly after that, Sue and Peter turned up on Banque a Barque and tied just a bit further up the canal. We've not had a chance to get to know them before and were delighted to spend a couple of hours over cups of tea doing so.

They live in Guernsey during the winter and cruise the canals in the summer, lucky folk that they are. On our return to Sanity Again it was of course rather hot inside the saloon, especially as the sun had come out...

Tomorrow, we'll move on a bit further, topping up the water tank at Lime Kilns as we pass.