Monday 24th August 2020 at Taft Bridge No. 69
A lovely sunny morning. Our good friends Mel and Peter, on hearing of our problems over the weekend, had very kindly offered to pick us up if we needed to be fed and to have a shower if the engine wasn't fixed. But, as it is fixed, we agreed to meet up at the café for the "Big Breakfast" when it opened at 9:00am. It was so good to see them again. Breakfast was even more enjoyable as it was half price thanks to Mr. Sunak!
We are seriously thinking of cruising together next year as we are planning to bring MM down to the Wey & Arun Navigation again and it is a waterway that they have never done, and would like to do.
M said that she was quite relieved to be leaving Great Haywood, as having the Big Breakfast three days in a row was not doing her waistline any good and was not doing anything to reduce what she calls her "Lockdown Podge".
After filling MM's water tank, we set off for the shallow lock just round the corner at Little Haywood where M befriended seven year old Georgie and her grandmother, Yvonne. Neither of them had ever been on a boat and were fascinated watching how the lock worked. M had plenty of time to talk to them as there was a queue of a couple of boats waiting for the lock. M suggested that they should come on board and we would take them down through the lock, which we did.
The next lock is Colwich, which is one of our favourites. Today, there were no cows watching us from the bridge, as has happened sometimes before, but there were cows and their calves in the next field, some of them standing in the canal or having a drink.
We passed a beautiful sculpture carved out of the truck of a dead tree. As we admired it, we were delighted to find that the gentleman sitting next to it was the sculptor himself, so we were able to congratulate him on his lovely work. He was clearly pleased!
M had been running the washing machine as we cruised and when we saw a nice open spot just before Brindley Bank, we decided to moor up so that M could peg out the washing on our rotary line.
The washing line is stored in the engine room and when R opened it up he found that we had a diesel leak. One of the pipe unions was not quite tight and it was dripping slowly. The next couple of hours was taken up with cleaning half a litre of diesel out of the engine room. Diesel is really horrid smelly stuff and difficult to get rid of. After soaking up as much as possible with a sponge and bucket, R washed out the engine room with a lot of dishwasher liquid and water. Eventually everything was clean again, except R!
Today: 3 miles, 2 locks and 4.1 hours (including engine testing).
Trip: 11 miles, 5 locks and 9.0 hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment