Sunday 21st July
Today has indeed been a day of serious cleaning and we have done the back, front, starboard side and the roof. It was absolutely minging, as someone said (of his own boat) last week and I was really glad to get it done. Tomorrow we will do the port side and the windows. We could have turned her round and done the port side today, the canal is plenty wide enough but by the time we had done the rest we were fed up with cleaning!
It was quite late when we finished the cleaning and headed off for some well earned refreshment at The Bell Inn in Frampton on Severn. It is about a 30 minute walk from here, along the canal to the village, via Fretherne Bridge. We arrived at the pub just as the village cricket match was getting underway on the green so we sat outside and watched for a while.
It was getting on for dinner time when we walked back and we got further held up when we passed the boat ‘Clara Belle’ at Saul. We met the chap and his sister when we were all moored at Gloucester then again at Sellars Bridge. They are a nice couple and have two dogs each. His dogs are called Jonah and Herbie and one of hers is called Deefer (D for Dog) but we haven’t a clue what their own names are! Anyway he was out there cutting mint as they were just about to have a Pimm’s so we stopped for a chat.
His sister appeared with a bucket (literally) of Pimm’s and asked if we wanted to join them. As we had already exceeded the stated dose at the pub we said what the Hell? It was a very nice Pimm’s and of course, as it had lots of strawberries and cucumber in, it counted as one of our five a day! We only had the one then came back to the boat to see what we had for dinner which required little preparation. We settled for a ham and corned beef salad with ‘cook it yourself ‘ bread!
Tomorrow, after turning round and cleaning the port side of the boat we are going to move on to Shepherd’s Patch from where we can go to Slimbridge.
