New Walk to Museum Gardens, River Ouse

A cuppa in bed then we made ready to move, we needed to fill with water.

Services for boats in York have always been pretty poor, since the Star in the City took over the building by Lendal Bridge the elsan and rubbish bins have gone, we remember them from our first visit by boat back in 2014. However, there is still a water point, if you pull up when the trip boats aren’t running!

We untied and made our way into the city at 8:30 a load of washing sitting waiting in the machine for when we arrived at the tap. The distance down the bank required us to bring out our extra hose pipe. The tank started to fill, washing machine turned on, Tilly’s pooh box got a refresh, we stay dirty until later. The final rinse of the quick wash coincided with the tank being full. The bin at the top of the ramp said Litter Only, handy! A lady from the trip boats appeared as Mick was winding the hose back up, as long as we were clear by 10am we were fine.

There were a couple of spaces close by, further away from the trains crossing Scarborough Bridge. We pulled into the first gap, plenty of length, but concrete sandbags not that far below the surface. It took a little while for us to find a suitable length we could fit in and not be too far out from the bank. Across the way at the rowing club we can see four steps, when we’ve been here before it’s been two at most, the river is low!

We decided to let Tilly see how rubbish this new outside was and opened the doors, giving her five minutes of shore leave. After a while she managed to scale the stone bank and could be seen checking out the big trees. Then her tail disapeared between the railings of the Museum Gardens. Maybe our plan had back fired? No she was soon back, too many people.

We had breakfast and then settled down for the day. A message from Frank came through suggesting his current stay in hospital may soon be over and him heading home, a big surprise to him and us.

I pulled put all the wall bits of my model and got them all painted along with swirling railings. These will all need a lot of greenery adding later, a job for another day. Mick made himself useful wandering around town trying to find me some green card or paper for the greenery, sadly not being sucessful. He was more sucessful in purchasing Oleanna a present, a new water hose, our current one having lasted us 11 years and exploding on us last year on the Caldon.

To celebrate Franks news we decided to pay a visit to Pizza Express, well there was also a deal of a second pizza for just £1 and some time away from the boat was needed. We left Tilly in charge and enjoyed our cheap meal for two.

It was a lovely evening, so we walked up to the Minster which was being perfectly lit by the lowering sun, through Bootham Bar which was hardly recognisable due to the amount of scaffolding on it, then down Marygate back to the river and Oleanna.

One day I’m going to manage to sort out yarn for the next pair of socks!

0 locks, 1 mile, 1 full water tank, 1 clean pooh box, 2 flip flops, 1 sniff of gardens, 1 dormant cat, 3 walls and railings, 48 hours left, 2 pizzas, 2 glasses wine, 5 doughballs, 10am, 0 green card, 25m of new hose.