A long day's boating

It must have been, we moved the boat three times.

/wahaha

First thing this morning we set out to check the river, reconnoitre the moorings and buy a paper. The river was much as it was on Saturday, well up the yellow and flowing very quickly; it was noticeable that the swans had all moved onto the overspill pools in the flood meadows, where they didn't have to paddle like mad to stay in one place.

Walking along the towpath, we found a 70 foot space on the 14 day moorings, and nipped back to the boat to move her. Although we're no longer continuous cruisers, and don't have to be engaged in a "genuine journey" any more, we are still bound by local mooring restrictions and were on a 48 hour stretch where we've been for the weekend.

I set off steering and Sheila walked along the towpath. As she got back to the space by the bowling green, the chap on the boat two behind it told her he'd be leaving at lunchtime. This was good news, as the space we'd found was well on the bend, making it difficult if not impossible to wash and polish the cabin side as we wanted to. As we were tying up, the guy on the boat immediately behind started a conversation about the state of the river, as he was thinking of setting off that way.

We had quite a natter about that and other stuff, after which he went back down below. Sheila popped into the village to get a paper, leaving me on anchor watch. Sure enough, ten minutes later, off he went, and I started hauling Sanity Again back one length, out of the shade of the trees, but still on the bend. Sheila turned up whilst I was in the middle of this, and we re-secured the boat to the towpath.

After lunch, the guy who first spoke to Sheila set off, and we moved again, ending up on the straightest bit of the 14 day length. This is really good; the sun is shining on the solar panel so we won't need to run the engine very much, and we've been able to wash and polish the starboard side of the boat.

We've just got the front bulkhead to do now, and that will be this quarter's polishing finished.

We've spent the rest of the afternoon sitting out in the sun on the well deck; spring is back with us, at least for today. We'll stay put now at least until Friday; I'll see the GP tomorrow, and we've dentist appointments for Thursday.