Sunday 4th August
We didn’t do too much today. It was fine when we left Sharpness and stopped for water at Purton. This was not a state of affairs which was going to last though and by the time we got to Shepherd’s Patch it was raining hard. We got more soaked before mooring up because we titted about going past two spaces, one was too small and one we thought was a water point but wasn’t so we had to turn round before the bridge and go back.
We got moored up in the end, then spent several minutes outside talking to the chap moored in front. Alright for him, he was in his pram cover! By the time we got in we were pretty wet. After drying out and having a sandwich we went to the pub, of course. It rained on and off all the time we were in there.
We returned to the boat and Ken put the tv on to look up the test match score and discovered the tv signal had deteriorated somewhat, especially the only channel we actually wanted to watch, (Channel 4 for Southcliff), which was unwatchable. In between showers he tried to set up the satellite dish but we were pointing at a tree so it was useless.
In the end we moved about 500 yards, through the bridge to the other side of the canal and got a perfect signal on both the aerial and the satellite! Just after we re-moored it rained really hard for quite some time.
Monday 5th August
We were surprised to find it wasn’t raining this morning when we got up as the forecast for today had been horrendous. Not taking any chances however, we donned our full wet weather attire for the trip from Shepherd’s Patch to Saul Junction. And of course there wasn’t a drop of rain the whole journey. We moored at the water point and did all things sanitary then moved up a few yards to the visitor moorings.
During this manouvre we found out why it was a good thing we hadn’t cleaned our chimney the other day ……… because we were now moored near a floating chimney sweep, hurrah! We had a brief chat before he sped off in his van and he is coming to do our chimney tomorrow. With this in mind I have cleared the remnants of the last fire out of the fire box, cleaned the glass door, fire bricks, grate etc so it looks better. I made quite a bit of mess and dust doing this and Ken said I may as well have done the whole chimney myself!
We went over to see the bridge keeper to get washing and drying tokens and met a really interesting chap who moors his boat here. He told us quite a bit about the local area, some we already knew but a lot we didn’t. Then we went off along the canal to Fretherne Bridge and walked to Frampton. We went to the shop for a paper and some milk then got some free range eggs from outside one of the many cottages who sell them.
Still no sign of the promised rain so we sat outside The Three Horseshoes and had a couple of Uley Bitters, a Cotswolds Brewery bitter, very nice. In fact it was so pleasant sitting there we had an extra one. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake because just as we left the pub the heavens opened! Had we have left after our normal dose we would have been back at the boat when it started raining.
Not to worry, we dived under a tree while it passed over. I took a very flattering photo of my lovely husband during this! The rain eased so we set off again but we had not gone far when it came down harder again. We spotted a bus shelter and ran across the road to get in it. As we sat there in the dry, a car came flying past and drove straight through a huge puddle. We were suddenly engulfed by a tsunami and ended up wetter than we would have been if we had kept walking!
As we were now drowned there seemed little point in staying in the bus shelter so we carried on in the rain to Fretherne Bridge. Just as we got there it started to open to let a boat through so we had to stand there for ages waiting and getting even more wet! By the time we got back to the boat it had stopped raining but we were wet right down to our underwear!
This afternoon there have been some pretty spectacular thunder storms and more torrential rain but it has hopefully passed over now.Ken is doing his ‘hunter gatherer’ bit again but there is more hunting than gathering going on at the moment!
So, we are having the chimney done tomorrow morning then …… who knows.
