Blast those grass cutters!

Not a good start to the day. Still in bed and the unmistakable sound of a strimmer nearby.  Ian shot up, dressed post haste and got to the chap as he was about to strim by our stern. Did he stop??? Did he heck!!! Instead he said he would clean the boat after he had finished.  His method of cleaning was a blower. With the full sun on that side you can imagine....  the grass cuttings had already baked on so the blower was of no use at all. Only washed the boat last night seeing as we were moored Port side. Hadn't been done for weeks you see, and sooo needed it. Didn't expect to wash it again so soon though. A nasty letter to C&RT is forthcoming. Mowing next to the boats is expectable but strimming??? especially as stones are thrown up as well.  This problem needs to be addressed as I'm sure the C&RT executives with their nice shiny expensive cars wouldn’t put up with stone chips all over their bodywork!

Anyway, rant over, we hurried off to Home bargains  for a round washing up bowl. Mine has all but disintegrated but no luck to be had (seems only rectangular bowls around these days) so the hunt continues.

Setting off around 10ish it took about an hour to get to Eldonian village.

Leaving the Tesco moorings

Grass cutting crew tearing down the towpath on a quad bike! Not just the cyclists with no regard to the rules..

Hmmm.... not sure a bus could make it to that bus stop.

On the way we saw a massive amount of smoke and as we got nearer flames were seen flickering up. Lucky for us the wind was minimal and only some of the smoke came our way. But floating bits stung both our eyes so very glad when we got to the other side.

See that heat haze. We felt it as we went past.

In our paperwork we had a plan sent to us showing our moorings but as per usual, plan goes out of the window when other boats are already moored in your place. Never mind we joined on the back of the line and went in search of the Harbour Master. Boats may need to be shuffled later but for now we stay put.

Then we were joined by our neighbour. Harold and Kate on Quintet. Slight difference on where we both need to get off our boats. They from the bow and we the stern so it turned out to be a nose to tail job which worked well for both of us.

Our boating buddies

Winding in what I can only describe as an extremely tight space. All credit to Harold for such a neat procedure.

Off for a walk to see what was around. Not to far from the rally site but we did need to cross the locks which takes you down to the docks. These we do next Wednesday when we go down to enter Salthouse dock.

Walking toward the terminus we spied Kennet. Built in 1947 by Yarwoods of Northwich, Kennet is a Leeds and Liverpool barge. She was built to carry cargo on this canal and is now used to providing exhibitions and displays telling about the canal's heritage. She had to reverse down the length of the arm, past the boats to her mooring right at the end. Help was forthcoming in the shape of a tug like boat, Anna.

Starting the reverse.

We found AREANDARE but Barry seems to be the only trading boat here. Maybe more will turn up tomorrow!
 

Off to a talk later by Mike Clarke  Founder and President of the L&L canal society and renowned author so should be very interesting. more about that tomorrow.

Not much in the way of wildlife seen today,