Saturday 27th July
Saturday we travelled the huge distance (for us lately) of 7 miles from Sharpness to Saul Junction and moored near the water point and Cotswold Canal Trust building. I wanted to be near the laundry so I could do a couple of loads of washing. I wash most things by hand but sheets and towels I find difficult.
After mooring up we went to see the bridge keeper to get laundry tokens. They usually have them in the Cotswolds Canal Trust shop but they had run out. Then we went to have a look at the Saul Junction Marina for future reference.
We followed this up with a walk round Frampton on Severn where we found the shop/post office which is a lovely little shop and very useful. Then we found a house selling fresh eggs for £2 a dozen, we decided to buy some and in the absence of a shopping bag I had to carefully put them in my handbag! Further along we found a house selling broad beans and gooseberries so we got some of each. Fortunately these were in bags which was lucky.
Then we happened upon The Three Horseshoes so we stopped for a pint and this came in a glass. After one pint we decided to go to The Bell so we could watch the cricket again like we did last week. It was not as hot as last week so we spent a pleasant hour or so there.
It started raining just after I got back with my second load of washing, about 4-30 pm and it rained torrentially for the next 12 hours. At midnight, just before we went to bed, we had to go out (in the pouring rain) and loosen our ropes because the canal level had gone up so we were tipping as our ropes had got tight.
Sunday 28th July
Today has been a warm and mostly sunny day (until 6-30 pm when the rain returned) but as we got up late and it was really windy we decided not to go to Gloucester until tomorrow. I did another load of washing, just because I could and we spent most of the morning chatting to the Australian couple on the boat in front of us. He wanted to borrow our sea magnet because he lost a piece of his bicycle when he put it on the roof of his boat!
Later we went for a walk to The Ship Inn at Framilode where we met a couple with a Staffie called Ozzy who was an absolute nutter!
Ken keeps persevering with the fishing and has managed to catch a few small ones. He was fishing from the kitchen hatch earlier. It’s a long time since I had a kitchen covered in fish scales and slime!
Tomorrow we are going to Gloucester because food stocks are getting critical, for example – tonight we had to resort to eating a tin of Ken’s Spam which was supposed to be for fishing bait!
