With Adrian away, I had a bit of single-handing to do this morning. First stop was The Trading Post for diesel, a distance of one tiny day boat! We filled the tank, and the gauge seems to have been pretty accurate, with 107 litres taken on. The next short hop was to the water point, just the other side of the entrance to Braidbar.
I had just untied and was about to set off when I realised I’d been so busy chatting to a walker who sat on the bench to get his flask out, that I hadn’t made myself a tea. So as the boat was sitting perfectly still, I dashed in and made one — it takes only seconds thanks to the Quooker tap! Once passed the boats moored on the deeps I switched to diesel power to give the batteries a charge. When I got to Lyme View, I went straight on past the marina.
I was doing just one more bridge, and pulled in on the moorings just beyond. I say pulled in, but we’re actually about a foot out from the bank, and won’t go in any further. It’s a nice sunny spot, and we were making some useful solar. I also ran the engine a bit more.
Adrian arrived back about 40 minutes after I’d moored up, and he’d had an additional success this morning. The particular mincemeant I like for my mince pies is increasingly difficult to find. It’s usually only in small stores these days, and he’d seen an upmarket Spar shop (which I know sounds like a contradiction) in the village of Hope Valley. While they only had one jar on the shelf, they had more out the back — so he got me a pack of six!
We headed off in the car to pick up and order from B&Q, do some Christmas shopping in M&S, and a quick shop in Tesco. Back on board, Christmas has arrived. We brought a few favourite things from home, but we don’t have many decorations and there’s not really room for a tree, but we have made an alternative display, topped off with a narrowboat bauble from my cousin Catherine.
1 mile, 0 locks. (10 miles, 0 locks)