Our thanks to Amanda & David for the Care and Control of WaL during their time aboard, Amanda cleaned out all the portholes for me and David has done some engine things which only men understand.
We met up with them finally north of Hinkley on the Ashby canal, it was to have been in Hinkley but it seems that my idea of quiet away from it all boating was not a unique thought and as Amanda coined 'All the world and their mother is here too'. Well maybe we'll change our plans then says I but they did find the very end of a stretch of armco that they squashed WaL onto for the change over.
I would have dearly loved them to have stayed onboard with us like the old days but there is Harvest and Covid19, so for now this is it.
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| This photo shown by kind permission of David Lewis |
They stayed for lunch and then departed, its David's responsibility to feed the nation and gather in the harvest. We stayed put that evening as unpacking takes me ages and it was a nice spot they had landed on.
The next day we did make a move. It was beautifully sunny, a little breezy but lovely.
The last time we were on here we think was six years ago, David kept saying that he'd forgotten how beautiful it is on this canal. Judge for yourselves, the weather certainly helped.
Farming news is that the wheat is doing nicely, but no where near ready here yet.
Lots of nice bendy bends with bridges and blind corners along the way. The progress was medium to slow owing to the famous shallowness of this canal. But who wants to rush anyway?
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| There was a boat coming here just out of shot. |
Now do you see this barn, its shape and size? David comes from a long line of farmers and his grandfather had one of these type. Its called a Byre, this would have housed cows and they would have been kept in stalls individually, tethered and the farmer (Most likely his wife too god forbid) would have moved from cow to cow with a bucket milking by hand.
David's father who was born in the 1920's and some of his twelve brothers and sisters milked the cows before school, the aim was to hand milk ten cows each, well that aim was probably for an adult.
Later on an airline was installed so that the cows were milked still in situ, but still several men to milk and care for them. David thinks that his grandfather had in the region of 40 to 50 cows.
When Tom (David's father) started off on what is now our farm he had a state of the art parlour in the 1955 and milked a revolutionary 60 cows. When I met David they had another brand new parlour and barn milking 120 cows. When the herd was sold in 2011, there were 500 cows. David worked with his brother everyday, all day in the care of them taking their welfare as importantly as that of his children.
A nasty incident occurred on a bend just before we reached our destination, it was a wide bend with moored boats on the bend, a boat coming towards us which took a bit too much of the canal forcing WaL onto what was a sand bank, WaL lurched sideways, the sound of breaking glass sent me RUNNING into the kitchen (Galley for purists) to this sight:
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| Two bottles of red wine, a bottle of cordial and a brand new bottle of salad dressing had fallen off the kitchen counter. Red wine was splashed on every surface and I'm still finding it days later. |
Not at all annoying.
Well not too much further to go, our mooring tonight was with a wonderful set of friends, NB Derwent6 Al & Del, if you open this link you'll see when we first met Al & Del See here (along with our "Boat Sharers" that is, David & Amanda)
and NB Ploddin' Along HERE John & Louise. We first met them way back in 2012, literally passing in different directions, but I saw the boat and recognised it as one blog I had been reading, some loud yelling followed and days later we found ourselves behind one another coming down the locks in Stone I think (Could have been Stoke).
We've been friends ever since. John is a lapsed blogger, but he might up take blogging again.... Go on my son!!
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| Del in action here with ropes and John about to take our rope so we could join the party. |
A reunion took place with much swapping of news updates and other vital information took place most of the afternoon. Rain stopped play in the shape of a thunder storm that clipped by the mooring, I tried to get a photo of the fork lightening but failed miserably. Supper on board our own boats then chairs out again later to resume.
So good to be with Long Lost's, but through the power of blogging you can feel as if you have stayed in touch all these years.
Supper was vegan tonight, falafel and vegan goujons and salad(Sainsburys), our daughter got us onto these and they are very tasty.
Please don't tell our farming friends!!
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