Willington Visitor Mooring to half a mile onwards
Mick’s sisters were otherwise engaged this morning, conferences, giving speeches, looking round churches with American friends or sleeping, so there was no Geraghty zoom. It turned out to be just as well really.
At just gone 10 am my phone binged. I’m here! Oh gosh, I’d meant it when I’d said ‘come early if you want to’, but hadn’t imagined that to be 10am. It didn’t matter anyway, I’d dusted down the worst of the cobwebs yesterday and only really had the back door mat to shake out to feel like we weren’t living in a hovel. Mick jumped in the shower for a spruce up.
I could see down the towpath a lady stopping to chat, the cheese boat caught her attention for a while, then I could see that she was carrying a stack of something. Had she bought the cheese shop out of all their stock? NO she’d stopped at the pub to use their loo and bought a coffee each for us.
There are people in this world who just make you smile, and Susie is most definitely one them. We worked together numerous times at the SJT, Things That Go Bump Season, Virtual Reality, lunchtime shows in the restaurant. Our paths nearly crossed a few years ago in Oxford when she was on tour playing Miss Marple, but the theatre had a power outage and I came down with covid the following day shortly followed by Mick. A mutual friend, Christine, had mentioned that we were near Derby at the moment and filled Susie in with Mick’s recent events. Susie called the other day and in a whirlwind had offered to take me out for lunch. I had to stop her in her tracks to say that Mick was now home and ask if he could come too. We sat and chatted, reminiscing on shows in Scarborough, good and bad things, but mostly how wonderful the theatre and the people had been back then. Happy and busy times for us all.
Susie has just opened in a new Torben Betts play Murder at Midnight. The second play in a trilogy of comedy thrillers. So this week, tech week, had been a long one for her. Hopefully we’ll get chance to see the show this coming week before it sets off on tour.
She gave us a little down time as she wanted to do a painting in her diary to help remember the day. A chair was leant to her along with my watercolour water pot and she sat out on the towpath suitably attired (well she is an actress) to paint Oleanna’s portrait. We knew she was still there as we could hear her laughing with passers-by, more smiles being handed out on a Sunday morning.
Painting done, we all walked down to The Dragon for lunch. I’d asked in a Boat Women group where was best for Sunday lunch in Willington. Several options had come back, one too far away and not by the canal, another at a pub with a long menu you get in chain, then The Dragon which was reported to do very nice food during the week, a touch pricey. Well I do a mean roast myself and after the last two weeks didn’t want to be disappointed, and end up wishing I’d cooked my own, plus there was a vast choice on the menu of gluten free options.
Blimey the place is huge, glad I’d booked a table! We opted for 2 courses, everyone having Bruschetta for starters. Mick then opted for the chicken breast, far superior to the one he had last Sunday, whilst Susie and I went for the beef, seriously treating ourselves with an upgrade to ribeye roast beef. Normally a gf option means you get different gravy and no Yorkshire Pudding, but here that wasn’t the case, good gravy and a pudding that competed on a level with Mick and Susies, plus there was cauliflower cheese which I could eat too! What a feast, we weren’t disappointed in the slightest.
We all left the pub, contentedly full, smiling from ear to ear. The sofa was calling to all us, so it was time to wave Susie goodbye at the bus stop and for us to return to Tilly on Oleanna.
Before we settled down for the afternoon, I walked up the towpath to see if there was any space ahead away from the railway. There was so we dropped the covers and pushed on half a mile to where Tilly could go climbing trees and pouncing in the friendly cover.
A lovely day all round and the only time it rained was when we were inside the pub.
0 locks, 0.5 miles, 0 zoom, 1 last quick tidy, 1 David W***y, 1 Village Wooing, 1 tennis court, 1 painting, 3 Sunday roasts, 3 very full contented smiling people, 1 bill split, 1 happy cat, 1 lovely Susie, thank you for coming to see us.
