Poor timing weather-wise

Wednesday 8th July; Droitwich Spa Marina

At last we are back on the water, if still moored on our pontoon at the marina.

The car was crammed with all the bedding and store-cupboard items we normally bring back for the first trip after the winter.  I bought extra tins (and cans and bottles) as we want to avoid shopping as much as we can, so that was a couple of extra bags. The luggage included Dave’s Christmas present, which I finally managed to get last week –

With a bit of luck he won't need to use them very often .... but I doubt it.  By the time we had finished packing the car, and I’d waited in the socially-distanced queue at the village shop to cancel the Sunday newspaper, it was 11 o’clock before we had left the village.  But the M5 was quiet, with all the motorhome and caravans we saw going the other way.  Once past Bristol, we watched bands of rain-clouds marching across the sky, driving through the showers and hoping we could make it to the boat in the dry – which we did, not long after 2.  Meg had suddenly woken up as we approached the town centre on the way to the marina, and sat up all alert – how does she know where we are?

The rain held off till much later, and normally we would have left the marina soon after we had unpacked.  But as we had been unable to come up during lockdown the batteries were pretty low so a few hours on shore power was indicated.  Time for some jobs!

Several spiders needed relocating before we could replace the window blinds which had come home for cleaning.  The kitchen cupboards took a long time to organise with the extra supplies, and while I was doing that Dave polished the brasses ….. and he made it rain.  Very quickly it was pouring down and put paid to our hopes of leaving the marina this evening.  Instead Dave fitted a new dado rail under the side hatch. 

Being stained and varnished at home

When we bought the boat, a side hatch was still rather a novelty to us and we didn’t know that if they are not bolted shut rain can get in.  Over the 5 or 6 years it took us to realise it the rail had developed a dark stain from the drips.  So Dave removed the section (which conveniently folded in half where it had got wet, so we could get it in the car!) and took it to a local woodyard where they made up a matching section.   The new, undamaged, section was 8 feet long and it was me who had to fold myself up to get in and out of the car as we came back to the boat.  Dave managed a pretty close colour match with stain and varnish, but the woodyard had not quite matched the length of the old piece so he decided to use the section from the saloon which was a good fit – and the tiny extra he had to add in the saloon could be hidden in the corner.

The rain eased off for Meg to be taken out before bedtime, but it was pouring again as we drifted off to sleep.

0 miles, 0 locks, a great sense of satisfaction at being back on the water.