We are woken in the night by a banging on the side of the boat… had the pirate duck found us or was it the zombies trying to climb aboard? Or was someone trying to break in and steal my coffee? Turns out it was a buoy we had left dangling on the river side of the boat so at 4.45 am Chris got up and climbed out of the bow doors to move it. It was light at this time so thankfully no torch was required and we were soon back to bed.
We set off on the bikes at about 8.30am as we’d promised ourselves a Wetherspoons brekkie! I think it’s roughly a mile to the famous Trent Bridge Cricket ground and we also pass Notts football ground. It’s a really interesting ride/walk down here and I would highly recommend it you manage to secure a mooring at Holme Lock.
Also, I will confess we expressed shock at how lovely everyone was on the path. There were dog walkers, runners, runners with dogs attached to them, cyclists, just walkers, horse riders but… we could not believe how friendly everyone was. This stretch should be the pinnacle of which every shared path aspires to. Dog walkers very kindly held onto their dogs and moved to one side as we passed by. Everyone smiled and said hello. It was a perfect synchronicity of everyone just enjoying their chosen means of transport and being nice. Cyclists keep to one side and respected the walkers and runners. I admit other times you feel some trepidation at a moan or someone being awkward but not here. It just shows when everyone had the same mentality, we can all share and enjoy the same stretch. ((Come on now Peachy. Confess you’re being paid or something to write this? This is one of your works of fiction isn’t it?)) not at all, it’s exactly as I said.
I did worry at one point as it looks like they are all set up for a triathlon at Pierrepont ((OMG can you imagine you getting caught in that?? I would literally pay to see you run, cycle and the belly flop like a hippo into a lagoon to do the swim part. I… I’m… I just cannot stop laughing!)) Well, I’m glad you find it entertaining. My days of doing challenges like this are long gone. I walked the Yorkshire Three Peaks for charity and that about broke me – well in fact I did fracture my hip the second year I did it. ((Oh, here she goes. Now she’s gonna share the fact that even with a broken hip she did the walk faster than the previous year)) Well I did! ((Peachy it was over ten years ago – you cannot dine out on it forever.)) I can, you watch me. I was very proud of what I achieved.
Getting back to the boat we stop and have a chat with a fellow boater. I love chatting to people who are seasoned boaters and are happy to share their knowledge and wisdom and are not condescending because we are ‘new boaters’. Everyone was new once and I think sometimes seasoned boaters do forget this. What’s wrong with new people coming onto the waters? Yes, they might be naive and yes, they might make mistakes but don’t we all.
Chat done we set to cleaning the boat and getting the washing done. Which as I’ve explained before is a longer task on a boat but we love that. Although being moored here it’s very strange as in regular intervals there are people rowing past the boat from the Pierrepont park. Some of them came so close to boat I nearly offered them a cup of coffee. In fact, when we were chilling on the stern last night someone shouted over and asked us to pour them a merlot! Lol. ((Oh, well you do have that plan to sell rum and gin on the boat Peachy. You would just have to be careful not to sample more than you sell!))
It’s 14.53 as I type this up. I try to get this done on the day because if you watch my vlogs you will know exactly how good my memory is! I’m going to schedule a few blog posts which you will have already read if you’re following this from the beginning and then it might just be a little reading session as my tbr pile is mounting up.
We decided to have a cycle to a local co-op which was about a mile away from where we are moored. It was lovely and felt like a suburb of London. ((Come on now Peachy. Tell them what you did.)) alright, I was getting to it! I was desperately clutching my 3 small bottles of rose when the worst thing happened… i felt one of them slip and my hands were so full with thing like salad, eggs ((cinnamon swirl…)) that I couldn’t catch it and it smashed on the floor ((Oh I wish I’d been there)) Chris carried on putting the stuff through the check out trying to pretend he’d never seen me before as I went to tell one of the staff. They were very lovely about it. I offered to clear it up but they cracked on. ((I can see why people laugh at your misadventures. You don’t even try to make this up for entertainment you are literally a walking disaster!)) I know Brackets, it’s getting older and being peri menopausal, I just don’t know who I am some days. ((Don’t worry Peachy at least everyone can laugh at you – that’s some consolation.))
Later we relaxed with a few drinks, caught up on bike racing and then it was off to bed to the sound of the water lapping against the boat. X
C.L. Peache 