Lockdown Mooring 4A

The alarm was set early. Mick got up and set off on a bike to do the paper round. We’d got a Click and Collect at Sainsburys this morning between 7 and 8am. Some substitutions were going to happen on our order, a larger bottle of vanilla extract, Shiraz instead of Merlot. The best one though was instead of Rice flour (have to admit I didn’t think they would have any and I’d ticked the substitutes box) I got a bag of pudding rice! Maybe I should grind my own flour.

At 10 am we settled down to see all the Geraghty faces across the globe. Today we had giant potatoes, various reviews of Twelfth Night, some cinnamon buns being made and discussions as to when people would feel safe about returning to work or school. How many families are having similar discussions?

After lunch it seemed that everyone from this stretch was heading for eggs. Barry and Sandra stopped and had a chat through the hatch before they headed up the locks and we soon followed hoping for some duck eggs for a treat tomorrow morning. We’d hunted around to find all the loose change we had so that we could pay.

In a world where contactless payments and bank transfers are far preferred to handing over coins and notes, will actual money become stuff of the past? Or will we still need coins in our pockets to pay local small businesses? Sadly there were no duck eggs, so we decided to make do with what we have on board and come back early next week to see what is on offer when we need fresh supplies.

As we walked back down the locks a boat was descending. A touch more reverse was needed so as not to hit the bottom gates. Mick helped with a gate, then we decided to leave them to it, to-ing and fro-ing to get through the bridge at the bottom.

Today I was hoping to get the improvements to my drawings finished, but it turned out to be one of those days when my drawing skills had packed up and left the boat. I persevered but may have to revisit them again tomorrow!

Mick spotted a rather flush faced chap in the hedge. He managed to get a good photo of him too. It sounded like he was singing his heart out straight into our side hatch. It looks like this Goldfinch and his mate may have a nest in our stretch of the hedge, here’s hoping Tilly doesn’t find it!

There is another bird here that we haven’t as yet spotted. The call is as if it is shouting out ‘PPe PPe PPe, PPe Ppe Ppe’. We both stood at the hatch trying to get a recording of it, but we ran out of patience just before it sang again, it’s obviously watching us from somewhere! The bird song this evening filled our world as the sun started to set above the reservoir.

The other boats around us have moved off today. We considered moving back to Lockdown Mooring 4, but have decided to stay where we are. The view from the galley is better with the gap in the hedge now that everything is getting fat and green. The view up to the reservoir is better too. This stretch of towpath also has fewer stones, so less likelyhood of bicycles pinging stones at Oleanna’s cabin side. The other day we had one perfectly aimed at our hatch which came in and landed at Mick’s feet!

0 locks, 0 miles, 0 duck eggs, 9 cinnamon buns, 9 Geraghty households, 1 each! 1 bumping boat, 1 pooh boat gone, 1 Pooh boat arrived, 2 Goldfinches, 1 mystery PPe bird, 2 big plates of salmon and spinach pasta, Yum.