And still we wait.

 Jan 30th

Still here...thirteen days later and the river refusing to go down. In fact, the one chance where we may have been able to leave, the levels having dropped to 1.61, happened at 5am on the 27th before rising swiftly again 4 hours later! No way would we have even attempted to make a break for it at that time of the night, in the dark, with the river still flowing fast...nop that was never going to happen!

 

So what have we been up too. Well.....

Getting low on water, we decided to look for our water container, felt sure it was in our cellar. Yep, we have an area under the floor where no ballast had been placed; Ian utilised the space by making 6 drawers to increase our storage.  But as Ian pulled the drawers out, shock horror...water lying on the exposed steel and the drawer bottoms wet. After the initial panic, Ian deduced that it was condensation, the insulating foam along the cabin sides didn't quite reach to the bottom. Hmmm....no wonder my feet were always cold! Anyway, FS looked like a bomb site with everything on display, and the underside of the drawers placed near the stove to dry out. Oh, and after all that disruption, the most annoying part, no sign of the water carrier!

We took the bus into Castle Donnington. Gosh, I'm impressed with the transport here. Every 15 minutes a bus arrived to either take you to East Midland Airport and onwards to Leicester, or in the other direction to Derby. Castle Donnington was on the route towards the airport, with a bus stop right outside Aldi. Result. A short walk from there and up a very steep hill (about killed me) was the small town centre with a hardwear store where we hoped to purchase a water carrier. Unfortunately, that was the one thing they didn't stock. Oh well, plan B. Ian would take the bus to Sandiacre to fetch the car in a few days. The bus wasn't needed though, as to the rescue came our daughter Christine and son-in-law Kev, turning up at the weekend with the offer to take Ian to our bungalow where the car was kept.  

Life became so much easier after that. The 3 cassettes (last one nearly at the critical stage) were taken to Willington facilities to empty, and rubbish also got rid of. A new water container was bought from Kimberly caravan dealers, so water wasn't too much of an issue for the time being, Below Shardlow lock was the water point, easy to walk to, to fill up. The only trouble was that blooming widebeam had decided to take up residence by the tap which would mean mooring up by boat a tad difficult. 

Today (Jan 30th) water situation became the talking point whilst still in bed with the first cup of tea. All well and good using the 20 litre container, but water soon ran out having used it for stand up washes, washing pots, filling kettles and flushing the loo etc. We therefore made the decision to take FS below the lock to fill the tanks and hope we could get near enough to the tap for the hose to reach. 

 

There was just enough space between the widebeam and that narrow boat, (which had arrived a couple of days ago and moored towards the end of the lock landing), to squeeze in. 30 minutes it took to fill both tanks, FS must have been very close to empty. Although moorings were available through the bridge, we both wanted to get back to the mooring above the lock so it was left up to me to reverse from the water point into the lock, and then try and get back to our vacated mooring. It was interesting to say the least, a slight breeze blowing toward the offside meant I had to keep correcting the way the boat moved, FS is notoriously bad at going in a straight line backwards. But all came good in the end, I reversed into the mooring, pins knocked in at the exact holes they came out of, and now we should be okay for another two weeks. Hopefully it won't be that long before we can leave, but not sure, as this sent to me by Kev. It's for the Swadlincote area, but not that far as the crow flies to Shardlow. Hmmm doesn't bode well for the future!

 

Closing the bottom gate.

A bit nerve racking seeing how close the gushing water was to the stern. I kept FS's bow as far to the front as possible.

This afternoon we went for a car ride to Trent lock, mainly to get rid of our recycling material, but also to see what the river was doing. Oh, yes it was high, we have seen it higher though. This in 2012.

Sawley flood lock

 Driving over the bridge at Sawley this afternoon, the flood lock was nowhere as bad as that. Check out MY POST from then. 

Back to the present, and at Trent Lock there would have been no way one would even want to attempt to turn into the Erewash with the flow as fast as it was, but not just that, I doubt if any narrowboat would get under the bridge to reach the safety of the lock!

The river gauge has lost its colour but still in the red!

 Back to FS and looking through the hedge, wow, river risen even more! The first photo taken a few days ago and the second this afternoon.

 

 

Looking at the Gov.UK website, although the river has dropped from the highest level last night (2.40m) now at 2.28m, there are no signs of the river coming out of flood for several days yet. Check out the website HERE