The time of leaving is nearly upon us.

Gosh where has the time gone? Seems like only yesterday we arrived back at Langley Mill and here we are, with 9 days to go before we set off, preparing FS for the exodus out of the basin. It's that time of year when the cruising season starts, a little earlier this year what with Easter falling in late March. Usually the Pie and Pea event held at Easter at the Lock Cottage, Sandiacre, heralds the start of us all departing and with the festivity normally in April, it makes a nice change to start the season a lot earlier. With a little under 2 weeks to go before the Pie and Pea, yesterday the cottage was being made ready for the event. Over the winter some of the walls in the upper rooms showed signs of damp, no doubt because of condensation and the fact the cottage is well over 200years old having been built at the same time as the Erewash canal in 1795. So earlier in the week Michael stripped the old plaster from the worse bits, re-plastered and on the Sunday the ECP&DA work party team started the big clean-up and re-painting. Ian helped replace the strip lights which refused to start, and I helped toward some of the cleaning. With too many bodies all vying for a job to do it was decided that Ian and I leave them to it and return to FS, and with the weather turning out to be 'quite nice', Ian got out the bitumen whilst I left him too it and went walkabout.

Dennis removing the loose chip paper

Michael Dave and Dennis

Heather on plate cleaning duties

Michael removing the loose paint.

Got back to find FS with a lovely blacked bottom (well the bit above the waterline anyway) and one more job ticked off the list before our departure.

And on my walk

Gold crest

Buzzard

I was unsure as to why these Long Tailed Tits kept flying to the window

I think they were after the flies caught in the spider web on the inside of the building.

Gave up after trying for over 10 minutes. Looks a bit dejected at missing out on a meal.