The Runaway Pepper Mill!

Thursday 9th August, 2012 at the Barge Inn, Seend.
A pretty, gentle morning with the promise of a fine day to follow. R was keen to make an early start in order to get a good space on the popular moorings at Seend.
Last night, when we had left Tony, Linda and Alexandra, we heard a strange noise coming from the boat. On investigation, it turned out to be our electric pepper mill that had sprung into life of its own accord and it was sitting on a growing pile of ground pepper and grinding away for all it was worth!! It was red hot!  Perhaps M's poltergeist, Tony, from back home in Reigate, had decided to come on board! This morning, R took it to pieces and fixed it so it is now behaving itself again.
It's been rather nice to be beginning to retrace our steps, as one always sees things from a different perspective on a return journey but there is much comfort in familiarity. At one swing bridge, we stopped in the shade of a beautiful willow tree for lunch. Two older gentlemen were helping a lady of similar age who had had a puncture on her bike. One of them had a spare inner tube that they were trying to fit on to her wheel, but couldn't get the valve to fit. R to the rescue with his tool kit from MM!
After a lovely gentle cruise, we arrived at Seend.  As we arrived, a Norwegian family on a hire boat nb "Iford" were just leaving, so we moored up where they had been. Good timing.

In the afternoon, we took it easy as it had become very hot and humid, but as the sun got lower in the sky we went for a walk around the local area starting by walking along the site of an old railway siding that used to run down to the steelworks which were here many years ago. Its difficult to think that this beautiful place was once the site of a large industrial complex producing steel. Such a shame to see the old disused railway lines - Dr. Beeching is definitely not our favourite character. M has always said that she would love to see the old branch lines restored.

Seend Station and the Main Line from Devizes to Melksham.

Tomorrow we will be taking MM to Caen Hill Marina for the weekend as we will be going back to Reigate for a few days.
Today: 7 miles, 4 locks and 4.3 hours.
Trip: 201 miles, 165 locks and 165.2 hours (315.2 total).