Staniland Marina to Thorne Visitor Moorings
Rain forecast for this afternoon we opted to move sooner rather than later and hope there would be space on the visitor moorings as we were in need of a refill of water and there is the preferred place for Sean to come and fit our new pram cover side.
At Thorne Lock two narrowboats were just coming up, the bridge still needed to be swung, so I helped with the barriers and pushed the bridge out of the way with the chatty volunteer. He isn’t really chatty, in fact he hardly says anything just an acknowledgement that you’ve said something. I hopped back on board and headed to the bow, hoping there’d be space for us on the moorings.
The bank moorings were full, but there was only one widebeam on the pontoons, yipee! We turned in bow first, bagging the pontoon that would serve us best. It took a while to get moored up as the pontoons are so short and the wind wasn’t helping, pushing us away. Then out with the hose pipe, we then remembered about the trickle of pressure here. Oh well we weren’t planning on going far today anyway, just turning round infact.
The rain started early as the water tank filled, we headed indoors to do chores, have a shower and then have lunch. As soon as the tank was full we winded and reversed back onto the pontoon, the side needed by Sean against the pontoon now. We just need to know when he’s coming. Mick called him.
Thursday! Oh blimey, do we overstay by a day? Or go away and come back risking that we won’t be the right way round or even find a space again? We’ve opted to move on if the moorings get busy, but if they don’t we’ll be on our way as soon as Sean has finished work.
It rained, quite hard at times. it’s what we need more of. Will St Swithin’s come good and it keep on doing so for the next 40 days and nights? What we actually need to know according to Wikipedia is if it rained on St Swithun’s Bridge in Winchester today or not?
I got news through that my digs for panto have been booked. I’m staying at the haunted bakery where I had one night when working on Cinderella two years ago. A very nice husband and wife for hosts and a fascinating building 10 minutes walk from the theatre. Susanne who I stayed with before has moved out of Chippy and it’s just that bit too far to walk along dark roads.
I’d arranged to see Della today, but the rain was off putting. However I changed my mind as the sun came out a little after 5pm, I sent her a message and set off to go for a walk anyway, it turned out she’d opted to visit her sister instead.
I had nice walk around the fishing ponds that you can see from the train and managed to get my 40 minutes of brisk walking done before the heavens opened again. There’s lots of ripe fruit hanging from the trees.
Then I sat down to check over the sock I finished last night. Hmm! It fitted me okay, but could do with just a little bit more space for the next size up. I don’t normally try the socks on that I knit, but having done a section of alternating yarns every stitch I wanted to make sure I’d compensated enough for the extra thickness. I reworked out my pattern and cast on a new sock, keeping the original as reference.
I’d suggested watching a film, but there were three days worth of cycling on the box to watch, so Mick spent much of the afternoon watching scenery in France. By the end of the day Mick was up to date with everything and the heavens had opened up again. Rumours are that Vazon Sliding Bridge was opened during the day today. A boat approached getting ready to moor up and wait for it to open at 4am, but they got straight through. Sadly by the time we reach it the temperatures will have risen above 15C again and we may end up having to wait a few days.
1 lock, 1 swing bridge, 0.5 miles, 1 wind, 1 very windy day, 1 soggy day much needed, 1 load washing, 1 clean pooh box, 1 full water tank, 0.5 of a sock, 3 days worth of cycling, 1 drugs run, 2.61 miles, 42 brisk minutes, 2 naughty pieces of chocolate orange (left over from Christmas), 1 haunted digs, 0 shore leave until we’ve a new side.
