Monday 22nd July
Today’s travelling has been short, we have only come 4 miles from Saul Junction to Shepherd’s patch, so named because shepherds used to watch their flocks here (I can feel a carol coming on) years before the canal was built.
We had a leisurely start to the day and called at the facilities wharf at Saul before making our way through Sandfield, Fretherne, Splatt (great name) and Cambridge Arms and finally Patch Swing Bridges and mooring just beyond Patch Swing Bridge. As luck would have it there was a space right on the end, near the water point, on the moorings on the left. This meant we didn’t have to turn round before mooring up so I could clean the Port side of the boat.
After a sandwich to fortify myself I cleaned the Port side of the boat. My God was it dirty? It was 10 times worse than the other side! It took me ages to get the accumulated grime and seagull poo off. While I was doing that Ken was inside taking out the windows, cleaning them and the guttering and putting the windows back, bless him.
This was hot and thirsty work so afterwards we went to The Tudor Arms. I was gratified to find you could trip up and fall in to the pub from where we are moored up, I didn’t fancy a 30 minute walk today. We sat inside the pub as it was a lot cooler and a chap came in with his dog, a rottweiler, boxer cross called Bono. He was gorgeous (the dog not the chap) and took up nearly all the floor when he laid down. After a while two of his doggie mates, a lurcher and a Jack Russell came in and it was bedlam for a while as they tried to play with him!
When we got back from the pub I got carried away and did some washing, then I did some hoovering and some mopping as well! By this time it was 36 degrees outside the boat and about 30 degrees inside. Ken had decided to make a lamb casserole for dinner so he had got the oven on! I was melting.
We let everything cool down before we ate and had our dinner ‘Greek Style’, ie luke warm. This evening it has rained a couple of times, really hard but no thunder storms as yet and having to have the cratch cover and hatches closed has made it really hot in here again.
Still, spare a thought for the town cryer in Tewkesbury who has had to run up the tower of the abbey in the rain to announce the Royal Birth!
Tomorrow, bird identification book in hand, we are off to the Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetland Trust.
