6th June '11

We have been out of the marina for a few days! On Saturday we went into Willington for Jim and Paul to work on the boat. The water-stain in the bathroom is now not to be seen, the inverter appears to be working and the water pump is not clicking over most of the time so that is a vast improvement. We still have strange noises in the pipes occasionally but not as much as before PLUS they remembered to bring the glass shelf for the cupboard in the kitchen!

Once they had left it was windy and so we decided to stay in Willington overnight to review the situation in the morning and in any case it made a nice change - we were able to do some slightly different walks with Paddy. Then we talked it over and decided to go on down to Burton the next day to go to B&Q! Crazy really but it was just the excuse we needed - the shop is a lot closer to the canal than it is to the town centre and we needed some air vents as the freezer has overheated a couple of times and we need more air flow around it (it's under one of the dining seats), so we needed a couple of brass vents to cover the holes.

Sunday and the wind was still blowing but the sun was out so we cruised on down to Burton and moored in pretty much the same place we had with Sue, Terry and gang.

This is the view from the boat across Shobnal fields - the IWA boat festival is going to be held here at the end of July - we have booked the boat in for a mooring which will be really exciting since we have been lots of times, the last 3 years in the motorhome and have been longing to go as real boaters! 

The weather turned cooler naturally as soon as we moored and were ready to go out but we headed on to B&Q, got what we needed and came back to cook a roast and watch Popstar to Operastar, which we had really enjoyed last year - can't believe how good Joe is already!!! One to watch.

Today we went up and turned at the winding (pronounced as in west wind, not in wind up the clock) hole by Shobnal marina, a boat was moored up rather stupidly by the entrance but soon moved luckily!

This is the boat moving away - you can tell it's a brewery town! There was a wonderful smell of malt today... opposite here is the Marston depot with barrels of Pedigree stacked high as you can imagine!!! Gallons of the stuff,,,,,,,

This is the actual winding hole - you put the bow in and gradually turn the boat by steering it around, going backwards and forwards slightly - this one is designed for a 70' boat to be able to turn so we had 8' to spare.

This is directly opposite the hole - glad our marina doesn't have such a small entrance!

going back where we came from!

The wind held off for the trip - the lock that we have to go through (only 3'6" and a narrow one so really easy) had a boat coming up, then us going down then a queue of 6 boats to go up which rapidly increased to over 10 as we were cruising on after getting through it! No idea why there were so many boats going up the canal but we were glad we weren't going that way!

Back safe in the marina we took Paddy out for a decent walk down to Stenson and had a drink - I have discovered Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer - mmmmm - there's a good refreshing drink for the summer and probably quite warming in the winter too!

We are hoping to get out again later in the week and want to go up to see the Anderton Lift - if you don't know what this is then it is worth Googling it - quite a structure! Then we will be back for our trip down to Dorset at the end of the month.