Retirement with No Problem

Today – Moored Denford
Yesterday – Thrapston to Denford, River Nene, 1 mile 1 lock

It was all my fault apparently…

The overcrowding at Thrapston visitor moorings, 4 narrowboats.. good job no more came round the corner!  Yes my fault it was.. Eric (Oh I do hope it was Eric and not Brian.. I am so dreadful with names) from Australia comes to Britain for about 12 weeks a year and travels the waterways.  This year he chose the Nene and Eastern Waterways because… “Your blog influenced what we would do this year!”.. He and his good wife were travelling with another narrowboat and crew that they had met last year.. .  I was flattered, but also a bit embarrassed to think that all 4 boats on the moorings were there because of me!

We decided to go back to Denford for a week… well the 7 day weather forecast on Countryfile was dreadful for this week, and we do like Denford, and do hate rain and wind.  So we pulled the pins and went back upstream after nipping into Thrapston again to top up on fly spray of all things.. well on the rivers the mossies drive me nuts in the evening, and I do like the windows and doors open.  There is the most fascinating hardware shop in Thrapston, it is hard to pull yourself away from there.. wooden floors and that typical ‘oldy worldy hardware store’ smell about it.. they sold just about everything.. “Got a hand brush without the dustpan to go with it?”  I got a dustpan you see, there is nothing wrong with that, it’s just the brush has seen better days “Well not sure.. the second row by the spades and forks, there are some loose brushes there”… Sure enough in amongst various brush heads I found a hand brush, just what I needed!

Short trip to Denford, and we had just moored up when the heavens opened..

Today I had to go back to Little Irchester, the Post Office near the Wellingborough embankment.  Not by boat, but by bus.. an hour it took to get there.  Post!  Blooming post had arrived after we had left.  I had lost a parcel somewhere and phoned them.. “Yep it is here”.. darn it.  “Would you forward it to Thrapston for me”.. “Err not for nothing no”.  They wanted the postage before they would send it.  Said to Vic it would be about the same price to go fetch it by bus.. By the time I had sent a cheque, they put it in the bank, it cleared etc etc etc, … anyway I decided to go get it.

I was back by late lunch time to find Vic going for it with the grinder and sander below the back deck planks, doing out all the channels that take the excess water away under the back deck boards..

Done a good job on that he has, and later this afternoon he got the red oxide and paint brush out to make sure the nice ‘non rusty now’ shiney bits don’t rust over before a nice coat of blue gloss later