Mick's not so keen on crowds and I thought he was going to have a melt down when he saw the length of the queue of people waiting to get in. As it turned out the wait wasn't long at all. We had pre-purchased our tickets. Good decision.
Despite the last few days being terrible weather, we woke to sun streaming in the porthole this morning. The sky was blue and the water still like glass. When we arrived at Crick the weather was still glorious and it stayed that way all day.
We particularly wanted to see the boat built by Dave and Gary from Heyford Fields Boatyard. It was a fantastic boat. We really liked it. We queued up for a few of the others too. Seeing all those shiny boats makes you want one!
We trawled through all the stands selling boating bits and pieces. There really isn't an awful lot we need or want any more but it's interesting to look. I bought a guide book for cruising the Thames, a bicycle locking chain (after reading nb Chance blog entry about chaining the boat on river moorings), and Mick got some more fender hooks to paint black and a new horn for the boat (it's stopped working).
It constantly surprises us that we could bump into people we know in a country on the other side of the world... or more often, people that know us (from the blog) but we have no idea who they are. Isn't the boating world a small community! Today we saw Lynn and Eric from nb Stanley (moored in front of us at Aston Marina) and the couple we were moored behind at Campbell Park. We also arranged to meet Adam and Adrian from nb Briar Rose. Adrian kindly showed us around the boat while Adam was busy - one I had as my pick of the week on the blog a couple of years ago now. We really liked the boat, just as we knew we would. We knew Paul and Elaine from nb Caxton would be there but with a rapidly dwindling phone battery, I didn't manage to sort a meeting place. We looked out for them but didn't see them!
We got back to the boat for an hours rest and a freshen up before heading off to the Carpenter's Arms for dinner. It was a lovely evening and the food was nice. We walked past Slapton Lock and went to take a look at what a passing boater was picking from some plants beneath the sign. It was a little planting of herbs with a sign above welcoming boaters to take some. What a lovely idea! Back on board there was a few people fishing along the canal behind us. A beautiful, calm, peaceful evening.
The day's are getting longer. It's light now at 4.30am.... light enough to start work, according to Mick.... and only getting dark after 9.30pm.
Photos :
1. My only photo of Crick!
2. Lovely evening when we returned
3. The Carpenter's Arms at Slapton
4. - 6. Herbs at Slapton Lock
7. Our mooring
8. Folk fishing behind us
2 comments:
Hi Elly, usual cause of a horn stopping working is a spiders nest. For some reason they really seem to like it in there. I clean ours out regularly with a child's paint brush.
Sorry we missed you at Crick. We had a wonderful day also.
Andy and Sue
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