Saturday 3rd August
No cleaning of any sort has occured on this boat today (apart from ourselves of course!) We have instead been for a nice walk. It has been a lovely bright and breezy day with a slight sprinkle of rain early on and a slightly bigger sprinkle this evening.
We decided to go for a walk round the docks, over the lock, in to the village to the shop and then up to Old Brookend to find The Lammastide Inn. This turned out to be a very pleasant 5 mile round trip more or less, 3 miles there and 2 miles back a different way.
We went along the canal to the marina but instead of going through it and up to the Docker’s Club we went past the marina and round the old tidal lock to the lifeboat station and up the hill to the road. Then we went to the docks. The shop at the docks was just closing as we passed (they shut at 11 am on a Saturday) but we had planned to go to the Mace in the village anyway because I needed some stamps and to post a letter. When we went over the New Lock at the docks it was full this time and the gates to the Tidal Lock were closed as well so I took more photos, as you do.
We then walked round to the picnic area, ostensibly to see if there was a loo there (I had had a coffee before I left) but I was unlucky so I had to improvise. In doing so I discovered a lovely footpath along the estuary which we will investigate further at a later date.
After my detour we carried on up in to the village via the footpath over the railway line which we had used last time and went to the shop then carried on further up the road to Old Brookend where we found the pub, hurrah!
The Lammastide Inn is the only one of that name in the country according to the Landlady. Lammastide is the ancient festival celebrating the first day of the harvest on August 1st. It is a really nice pub and the Bass was excellent. The food looked very good but was a bit pricey we thought.
On the way there Ken spotted a Magpie Moth in the grass along the verge. They are quite common but this was the first one I had ever seen (see photo). After exceeding the stated dose of Bass (naughty) we returned to the boat by the slightly more direct, and a mile shorter, way down the road to the High Bridge which made the nice circular route. We then had tea, cakes and a siesta! This evening has been rather showery so there are no fishing exploits to report. Tomorrow we are going back to Shepherd’s Patch.