To Willington

We'd thought when planning this trip that we'd stop at Shobnall Marina for diesel, but the bright sunny weather means that the solar panel has been earning its keep, and we've not used quite enough fuel charging the batteries. The thing is, Shobnall only offers a decent price if you take more than 100 litres, so it's a good idea to have plenty of room in the tank before stopping there. In addition, it's a bit of a pain turning into the arm to get fuel, so on balance we decided not.

We'd also thought about going to the Marston's Brewery shop for some beer for me, but they don't open until ten, so it all looked too much of a hassle.

Checking Sue's Diesel Splits webpage, I see that Sawley is described as "yes but need to negotiate" whereas Sileby Mill gets a straightforward yes. With more than half a tankful, I think we'll go for Sileby. Similarly, Elanor has asked us to dogsit for a weekend later this month, so I reckon it might be possible to persuade her to bring a case of ale for me at the same time.

We've taken to keeping the small camera in the radio cubby hole, making it easier to take photos as we go, and so to add some to this blog. I got a couple of shots of the site of this year's IWA Festival as we went past:

The exhibition boats will be here, with the show behind them

Some overnight moorers further along;
not recommended at the weekend, usually

My captions assume the layout will be similar to 2004, but I haven't seen the plans as yet. Although a very pleasant place to stop during the day, and fine at night during the week, probably, the park does become the haunt of less desirable characters at the weekend, so we wouldn't choose to stop there then.

Once down Dallow Lane Lock, you're on a broad waterway, as witness this boat seen near Bridge 25:

Clinically obese narrowboat

These wide beam "narrowboats" always look to me as if they've been stood on, or that the designer brought a diagram of the cross section of a conventional narrowboat up on his screen, clicked and held a handle on one side of the frame and pulled it out sideways. If you want a wider boat, why not go for a proper barge shape, like a luxemotor or tjalk?

Willington was pretty busy when we got here, but we found a mooring with no trouble and have spent the afternoon pottering about. We bought some petunia and campanula plants from the flower shop, and Sheila has potted them up in a trough, so we've made a start on the summer flowers on the roof.