To the sanctuary of Trinity Marina...

A pleasant but fairly short journey brought us just outside of Hinkley town for Sunday night. Although the journey wasn't many miles we had come through Hawkesbury Junction on Saturday and Marsdon Junction fairly soon into our trip. We had a chilly start and didn't see more than a couple of boats (which is a strong contrast to all previous Sundays regardless of weather) until we arrived a Marsdon.

We had had a hire boat on our tail for quite a way (why are they always intent on traveling at maximum pace?) and when I approached the rather tight bridge to blind corner to junction turn the hire boat hadn't left himself much room for maneuverability. Once I was through the bridge I was bow to bow with another boat and stopped quickly with a large handful of reverse throttle. The couple in front moved to port with plenty of time for me to go through, unfortunately the hire boat behind was half way through the bridge and blocked the onward passage. I called the rapidly approaching hirer through to pass me and free the bridge exit and drifted to one side out of the way. By now the experienced boater showing his dexterity had reversed to give the hirer sufficient space however two further boats were on their way through the other canal bridge from the Ashby canal and were committed to their passage. So no boats all morning and then five of us all at odd angles trying to man handle 80 tons and 300 odd feet of steel boats under 7 foot wide bridges to continue our journeys. What an exciting trip and all in a few miles!

The Ashby is a very different canal to the Coventry we had just left, far more rural with lots of deep tree lined cuttings and towpaths that were highly over grown leaving us purpose built mooring points doted along the way. After the fairly big lunch I had made Deb neither of us fancied any dinner so we settled down to mugs of steaming coffee and cinnamon toast before turning in reasonably early. Only a mile or so the next day saw us mooring as directed just outside Trinity Marina awaiting our allocated birth. It was a woolly hats start again and I was sceptical that the weather would be likely to change from cool and dull to hot and sunny in the next 24 hours. 

With the travel generator still not working I was looking forward to plugging into the electric and seeing if I could get the power to the oven and hob working, making use of the shower block on site and not having to wait for the solid fuel stove to get hot enough to boil the kettle on. Its amazing the silly things you take for granted and miss from civilized life. If I had previously wanted a hot drink I would have put the kettle on or made my selection from an array of speciallised coffee, tea or hot chocholate from our coffee machine. Now its light the fire and pray for the whistle alerting us to sufficiently hot water to brew tea or make do with instant coffe if the kettle only managed fairly hot. Not for the next few days though as plugging the boat in to mains shore power brought all systems to life including the ceramic hob and oven (tea and toast for breaky at an instant tomorrow morning) So the problem with the generator lies within, in its control box or the wiring to the consumer unit - specialist knowledge needed. 

After briefly settling in we decided a stroll to the local co-op about a mile away was needed as we were expecting our guests for an afternoon boat trip and picnic tomorrow. On the way back the cloud started to thin and I could actually see the light at the end of the weather tunnel. Maybe we will get the warm weather as forecast.