Fun and Games at the winding hole

A very lazy day today, or so I thought. Ian had the usual hospital appointment in Nottingham and left to catch the Burton train by 12 pm. Loads of boats on the move so fishing was out of the question what with the constant flow of water. Then later that afternoon four boats approached us, It was Dennis and Margaret on Nb Icing with Mike and Carole Golds boat Electra breasted up to them. Both Carole and Mick had to leave the boat and return home so it was arranged that Dennis would move their boat.  Behind them was Dave Carnell on Nb Scrimmager and Ernie Boddy on Nb Florie also breasted up. I will try to describe the scene, Icing with Electra was heading for Shobnall winding hole, and Scrimmager and Florie was tied to them but stern to stern In other words facing the wrong way.


Dave releasing his ropes from Icing.




Dave and Ernie, with both boats still tied together, were trying to clear the main channel because of other boats coming toward them. As you can see it didn't quite work out!! Icing and Electra, now free,was making steady progress toward the winding hole.



All four boats were heading for moorings nearer the site and Dave and Ernie decided that it would be easier if Dennis pulled them back to the winding hole. I got involved when I spied a boat coming in the opposite direction and they asked me to race toward them and ask them to wait in the winding hole at Shobnall until the boats had sorted themselves out.

The Green boat had tucked himself in nicely when another boat arrived through the bridge hole. 

Because it was impossible for Icing and Electra to go through the bridge together she had to be let loose so Icing could take her stern rope and tie the two bow to stern. It took a lot of maneuvering before this was finally accomplished and in the meantime more boats were arriving and chaos rained for several minutes. It all came good in the end though and Electra was pulled into the side awaiting the tow from Icing.


Getting ready to go through the bridge.

 After all this excitement I came back to our boat to await Ian's return. Not long after I got a phone call from Margaret saying that if we wanted a mooring by the site to come as soon as possible because spaces were available and there was no saying if any would be left later. Ian still hadn't returned so I decided to take our aerial down and dismantle the planks ( which, by the way, Ian had screwed together with some wood so they wouldn't move) By the time I had finished all this Ian turned up and so with a quick phone call to Margaret to make sure there were still spaces, we pulled pins and headed for the site. The WRGIE's boats were still moored on the offside as well as boats moored towpath side so I finally got to see how the hirers had to negotiate through the single boat width channel.  Not easy for an experienced boater so I can now imagine how terrified the novice boater would be.

Slotted in nicely between Nb Nell and Dave and Heather on Nb Bracken

Last night we had a towpath game of Mexican train. Its similar to domino's but in my opinion lots more fun. If ever you see it on sale I would recommend buying it. With a group of up to 8 players it can give hours of fun and hilarity. We abandoned the game when we could no longer see the spots on the domino's!