A short cruise, ever such a short cruise.

Time to go.  

We pootled off southwards, we'd been here for almost four days, eeking out the water supplies after filling up at the top at Snarestone, I also filled the saucepans and the kettle and David's cycling bottle!

 

I have a plastic water container onboard that we use on the Thames mostly, as not all that many water points there.  

It holds about a gallon, we use that for washing up, and when we have a shower, we collect the water in the kettle and saucepans until the water runs hot.  This way we can last  ten to twelve days instead of the usual five to six.

My only teeny weeny grip with WaL is that I would have liked a bigger water tank.

But anyway, we landed at Shackerstone.  You might remember its the village with the large crescent of moorings, some private and quite a few visitor and the Motte castle remains.

It was only about 11am after about a 40 minute cruise, when we arrived, there was a WaL sized space at the beginning of the moorings on armco and we dithered about shall we shan't we.... well we did and although David thought it was better through the bridge and around the corner, he came to my way of thinking and decided that it was beautifully open with lovely views.

A lady was sorting ropes on the boat in front, we got chatting as you do and it turns out that Linda, is the founder of a group of single handed boaters who are women, on Facebook, guess how many members there are?

I'll tell you at the bottom.

Linda started Meet-Ups for the women members, then dinners, then overnighters and now they do weekenders!  

I asked to join there and then but sadly I don't qualify. 

This was taken last evening, I was playing Peek-a-Boo around the side hatch, forgetting for a minute that these were not my grandchildren, they seemed to enjoy it.

The mooring we left this morning.

Bit of a dodgy footpath along this stretch, easily loose and couple of old ladies.

 It was boiling hot, so after mooring and faffing, we hid from the worst of the sun and relaxed..... again.

That evening we walked all around the village, the church was still closed due to Covid19 but the village is quite unspoilt although a large number of Range Rovers and big fat Audi's which is always a bad sign.  I picked out several properties that we could "Retire" to, not me this time Reader, but David, he absolutely loves the countryside around here.

After doing our bit to support the local community centre (Pub) we made our way back to WaL to enjoy the rest of the evenings warmth.

Supper was mushroom omelette with copious salad.

Approx 45 single-handed Boaters who are women, I've only ever met a handful.