What's That In My Tea?

 Monday Morning Blue Skies

Yes, its jottings time again - Captain Carl here. Doesn’t time fly? Last Sunday we were moored above King’s lock on the other side of Leicester and here we are, one week later, near Loughborough.(note from Linda - that's hardly record breaking!)

What happened was this...

We woke up last Monday to sunshine and blue skies and two unidentified birds fighting in the field opposite. I think they were buzzards but Linda wasn’t sure. (Note from Linda – I was sure actually, it was a pair of mating buzzards and the courtship ritual was so boring that I'm surprised that there are any buzzards that can be bothered!) They have nothing to do with our journey, but I thought they were worth mentioning. Anyway, as the weather looked fine, we wasted no more time and set off. There are about seven locks (including King’s lock) to Birstall, and we negotiated them all without any real problems except for the notorious North lock, which was hard work. The top gates leak badly, so emptying the chamber is problematic. Still, patience, elbow grease and a few choice swear words did the trick and the right-hand lock gate eventually creaked and staggered its way open. I creaked and staggered a bit after opening it too, I can tell you. The stretch between Limekiln lock and Belgrave lock was a lot cleaner than it used to be, although there was still more garbage floating in the water than there needs to be. By early afternoon we had moored above Birstall lock. The sky clouded over and then, out of nowhere, there was a torrential shower of rain, the only rain we’ve seen for some time.

Female Buzzard - sorry that's the best I could do!

Now, we were due to meet up with some friends here over the next few days, and Claire was coming over for the weekend, so we planned to spend a week on this mooring. We were opposite the water park, so had lots of nice areas to walk Tricky. She seemed to enjoy trudging along with us as we ambled around the lake, stopping now and then to watch the swans, ducks and geese with their goslings.

Water Park in Birstall

On Wednesday, our friends Ian and Di arrived, so we treated them to a cruise to the nearest marina and back for fuel and the pleasures of emptying our toilet cassette! Although the weather was cold and grey we had a lovely day with them and finished it off with a meal in the local Indian, The Aroma Spice. We were thoroughly spoiled for treats because on Friday, our good friends Jan and Keith collected us, and whisked us off to the Mountsorrell and Rothley Community Heritage Centre where we enjoyed coffee and scones.

Linda and Ian

Carl and Di

At times like this, when we’ve been moored in one spot for a number of days, I’m reminded of what a good purchase our solar panels were. We moored in Birstall for the best part of a week and got enough power from our panels to keep the batteries topped up, run the fridge, pumps and television. Consequently we didn’t have to run our engine. Wonderful!

Panels up to catch the sun

Weather wise, Saturday started with an early frost but became a day of gloriously warm sunshine. Claire was due to come over and spend the weekend with us, but wisely decided not to risk it when her car developed a ‘funny noise’ - it’s in the garage waiting for a spare part so maybe she’ll make it next week-end. There was no reason to wait in Birstall any longer, so at around mid-afternoon we decided to “go for it” as they say in Parliament and started the engine, slipped the lines and chugged off.

Carl caught this Orange Tipped Butterfly

Birstall are holding their annual duck race tomorrow (Monday), so we’ll miss that, unfortunately. It should be a lot of fun. The legendary Leicester Red Rum Ruddy racer (last year’s winner) will be up against Daffy Green’s gender neutral Eco contender, Deserted Orchid, the Muscovy/Mandarin/Mandrake hybrid. They’re using the non undulating all-weather stretch of river this year, so it should be an interesting race!

Sunny Morning

Let me tell you about a recent incident that happened as I was getting Tricky’s food ready. I had to open a new tin of dog food. The lid was a ring pull type. As I opened it, the last half an inch of lid wouldn’t come away. As there was a small quantity of dog food attached to the lid I took great care to pull the lid free without flicking the dog food anywhere. Of course, there was a sudden “ping!” And the lid came free. I saw the dog food fly off but it was too fast for me to see where it went. An immediate search was instigated. After a few minutes I found the offending product on the floor near the cooker and swept it up with a convenient piece of kitchen roll. Then I fed the dog and everyone was happy. That lasted until I went to drink my cup of tea. Yes, dear reader, the second piece of dog food was floating serenely in my tea.

What we bought in the charity shop

Today has been a pleasant cruise over long stretches of river and though occasional locks to our present mooring just outside Loughborough. We wandered into Sileby for milk and ad a rummage in the charity shop next door - well, Linda rummaged and I looked for more books. My book collection is looking sadly depleted as, when I start a particularly good book, I tend to race through it and there is nothing sadder than getting to the end of a really good book. We moved on through Mountsorrel and on to Barrow-on-Soar and the infamous Deep Lock (9 feet 7 inches if you're interested) which was waiting for us with gates akimbo - always a welcome sight.

A Mammoth Attraction

Tricky is not impressed

We arrived here mid-afternoon to find that there was a 70 peg fishing match in progress and every mooring spot between here and Loughborough would be spoken for. I jammed us into a space and mackled up a mooring using the one free bollard and a reverse thrust pigeon knot and had a cup of tea, while they weighed out their fishy treasures and trollied off leaving a nice big gap for us to slip into - and relax!

That’s enough for this week, more from the First Mate next week

The Floating Chandlers

ps Oh, I nearly forgot. Late on Wednesday evening, I let the dog out for a sniff and was spellbound by the number of owls that were calling each other. I’ve never heard anything like it. I reckon there must have been at least half a dozen, maybe more - that's probably a 'Parliament'

Proud Mama