New Boots Footbridge to Sainsburys
Last night we’d given our cruising plans some thought. Our original aim had been to head to York for a get together with an old friend and family. We’d considered it possible in the time we had, had we left Redhill on Monday, maybe Tuesday at a push, but another days delay? We know the route pretty well and can plan day to day in our heads, but we still did a Canal Plan route, 45 hours cruise. We then checked the tides. The day we’d be looking to go from Cromwell to Torksey were possible. The remainder for the Tidal Trent to Keadby, not so good. One tide was very early in the morning, like not long after midnight so all of the trip would be in the dark. The other late afternoon, so by the time we’d get to Keadby we were unlikely to be in time for a lock keeper. Mick has a hernia, so he’s not keen on standing for long periods of time at the tiller.
Tides, cruising hours and hernia have put the kibosh on that plan. However, it would still be advantageous to head northwards for a while, but at a much slower pace before we turn and hope to get south for Panto. After all, the majority of our plans haven’t come off this year, so we might as well add another one to the list!
We made ready to push off, Mick at the helm and me on the towpath. It was quite a pleasant walk in towards Nottingham. Less pennywort on the canal than we remembered from last year. A group of boats were moored up by Thane Road Bridge, all moored to rings, I made a note of the mooring before carrying onwards. Maybe these are new rings, or maybe their proximity to the two bridges make for a not so attractive mooring.
I climbed back on board at Lenton Lane Bridge as we’d be turning into Castle Marina shortly and there are too many boats moored near the entrance to be able to climb aboard there.
Gosh what a difference a year makes. Last year many of the pontoons at Castle Marina had been condemned, they had been for a few years. But Aquavista have invested a lot of money here. the five pontoons has been reduced to four, meaning they can accommodate more narrowboats, but in return cutting down on the number of cruisers. They still have a couple of winter moorings available should anyone be interested.
We filled with diesel, 64 litres at £1.50 domestic, Ouch, thank you Donald!
Back out of the marina pulling in close to the entrance for Sainsbury’s. Lunch first then we’d go and do a big shop ready to fill the freezer.
We came back with four big carrier bags full. I set about filling the fridge with cold stuff. The new fridge is great because it actually gets cold, but the arrangement of the door shelves is very odd and the main shelves seem to be a couple of inches shorter than our old fridge. The most annoying thing about it is that the crisper is not wide enough to hold a wine box! It’s something we’ll have to get used to and we’ll have to buy smaller bottles of tomato ketchup in future as the current one is too tall.
Next thing was to find a suitable container for our wood litter, we use it in our separating toilet and Tilly uses it in her pooh box. We buy it in 30 litre bags and where the bag now needs to be stored it could easily fall over when Tilly’s pooh box is removed. I headed off to B&M which was full of new students buying essentials for their accommodation. Storage boxes were plentiful, but just about all of them were too wide for the gap I wanted it to go in. Then high up I spotted a container that would hold 20 litres of dog biscuits, it came with a scoop. It would fit the gap and leave enough space behind it for the remainder of the bag of litter. It looks quite smart and we won’t tell Tilly it’s meant for woofer food!
After the last week and now no need to keep going today we opted to slow right down and stop for the day. Yes, down at County Hall the mooring is nicer than opposite the student flats, but we were in need of a rest, plus there were still jobs to do and the students haven’t moved in yet.
Tilly thought that the bushes looked really interesting alongside us, but She said it would be really bad if I got to meet a sooper fast bicycle, especially on my first shore leave in ages! Instead Tilly watched me repack mince, sausages, turkey steaks and jointing a chicken to go in the freezer. Now we just have to hope that the freezer can cope with getting everything cold!
Mick tinkered with the wires in the new connection block for the TV and radio aerial. We now have TV signal again! Hooray!!
Red Pepper Salmon tonight and some knitting now we have light again.
0 locks, 2.7 miles, 2 rights, 1 wind, 64.11 litres, 0 gas, 1 more change of plan for the year, 1 trolley to the boat, 1 more day of feline boredom, 1 woofer litter box, 1 slow day that wasn’t actually that slow.
