When we arrived at this marina on Tuesday we didn’t realise the nearest water tap was so far away, but reversing into the berth turns out to have been a bad idea from that point of view (although a good idea in terms of an actual view, and the plugging in of electric). By this morning we were down to a quarter of a tank of water, so something needed to be done sooner rather than later. The weather was awful, with rain and gusty winds, and another boat which had come into the marina struggled to get to where we wanted to be; mostly, he was pinned across the boats on the far side of the marina. So turning around wasn’t appealing. We had actually been planning to head back to Higher Poynton for something, but more about that another time, but that wasn’t happening either.
So I went in search of a hosepipe to borrow. The first one, from a boat just along from us, was a scrunchy one, but was much thinner than ours and the two didn’t like being connected together. Almost nothing came out. So I asked a lady walking a dog round the marina if she had one, and she did. Two, in fact, although it turned out we only needed one extra one. Fortunately we’d bought a connector the other day. So we had a massive hosepipe from the other side of the road, down the bank, up onto the roof, and down into the well deck.
It all took ages, and I’d also got soaked in the process — partly because of rain and partly because of the first attempt, when the connector between the fat and thin hosepipes kept coming apart. Anyway, eventually we were full, and I could get warm and have some lunch.
This afternoon I made the first batch of mince pies of the season, having made the pastry yesterday morning. They turned out pretty well, so as a thank you to the lady who’d helped by lending her hosepipe, I packaged up a few and took them round to her boat. She was delighted!
I can see how the Macclesfield Canal benefits from being on the side of a hill. It’s been raining a lot, and there’s loads of water flowing into the marina and the canal from the hills behind us. There’s currently no water shortage — but I hope some is also going into the reservoirs.