Gardening nearly done

After a relaxed start and getting another batch of bread dough on the way, we got back to the gardening, clearing out an area that won't be very visible when the marquee is up, which is why we'd left it to last. We'd more or less finished when Susan turned up bearing some trays of pansies to be planted into the strawberry pot and some other containers.

We saved that job for this afternoon, having first gone back to the boat to finish baking the bread and to sort a wash load Sheila had run in the machine in the bungalow. After lunch, Sheila got busy planting with some help from Susan whilst I trimmed back some hawthorn branches which were overhanging the lawn and liable to get in the way of the marquee when we put it up.

Meanwhile, a squad from the yard had gone over to Victoria Pit to move Gladderbrook to another pontoon. This was a total failure; the canal had dropped four inches overnight and Gladderbrook was firmly aground. It's always a bit of a surprise to discover that a boat which can normally be pushed about is now immovable, but there's just no way twenty odd tonnes of steel can be shoved along the mud by purely human effort.

Graham and Beryl on Priscilla II, whose mooring it is, have been warned and are happy to use one of the other moorings when they get back on Sunday.

The second half of the afternoon was spent largely relaxing, drinking tea and watching others work, hee hee. Tiree has gone out for her week's hire and Ice Breaker has been released from durance vile, emerging smartly from the paint shed to spend the weekend on an open mooring in the yard.

We've got two main aims for the weekend, firstly a trip down into Poynton to do a bit of shopping in Waitrose and secondly, a thorough clean of the inside of Sanity Again. By doing one or two compartments at a time, we'll spread the load out over the three days.