A week later!!…….

Last Saturday Ali and John, who have booked a build slot with Beacon for boat No 13 (!) came over to visit. We had lunch in the Bubble Inn, and a lovely afternoon gossiping and discussing the plans for their boat. The weather was foul when they left at about 5 o’clock, and they didn’t have a very good journey home. On Sunday, Karen and Ian from nb Serenity (Beacon’s No 6) came over to see us, and again we had a very good carvery lunch in the pub. The Bubble Inn is a converted barn, and is very large. Unfortunately it was almost empty every time we went in, apart from Sunday lunchtime when there were a few more people. The food, each time we have eaten there has been first class, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it closes before too long. Just a few little things that add up to the fact that it may be in trouble financially, apart from the fact that it is almost always empty. Items on the menu not available, the gas had run out and not been replaced on the coke/lemonade thingy, the central heating oil had run out so it was cold, and ‘technical difficulties’ meaning that they were only accepting cash and not debit or credit cards! It will be a shame if it does have to close as the staff were all very friendly and as I said, the food was very good.

We had some drama on Monday – Cassie ripped out a claw! She clambered up the steps to the temporary bridge in the photo, despite being told a definite ‘NO’, and then, as it was so steep, made an extremely fast, uncontrolled decent.

She scampered off quite happily and we continued our walk, and it was only when we got back to the boat and I attempted to clean her up a bit (she was horrendously muddy) that I discovered her paw was bleeding and one of her claws was hanging by a thread. We knew there was a vet back at Willington, so we phoned around the taxi companies until we found one that would take us, and off we went. Twenty quid for the taxi there and back, and £110 for the vet to sedate her, remove the claw, give her an antidote to the sedative and an antibiotic injection, dress her foot, and 5 days worth of antibiotic tablets, and we were back on the boat with a ‘very sorry for herself’ wounded soldier!

She’s still very sorry for herself and keeps showing us her paw – unbelievably the bandage is still in place, only a little nibbled at the top. I think she’ll be happier when I can take it off, tomorrow or Saturday probably.

Our son Russ arrived for a few days on Tuesday, (if only Cassie had waited until then, we would have had a car to take us to the vet!) and immediately took us to Asda to do a big shop (there aren’t a lot of shops along this stretch of the T & M.) We didn’t cruise far, as the weather was still foul, just back to Willington yesterday to service the boat, and back to Stenson again.

Russ treated us to lunch in the pub yesterday and he and I went into Derby in the afternoon for a look around the shops, but all we bought was some Christmas cards. He left just before lunch this morning, and we decided that as it was not a bad day, weather-wise, that we would move on a bit – we were getting fed up with the scenery at Stenson, as we’d been there over a week. We are now moored on the visitor moorings at Swarkstone. The stoppage at Sawley Flood Lock is due to finish tomorrow, so we will head for Shardlow and wait around there as the Trent is in flood, and closed to navigation. We spoke to Dave, the Sawley locky, today and he says that the water level is 8 inches into the red, but going down, so hopefully, as long as we don’t get too much more heavy rain over the next few days we should be able to get to the Soar over the weekend, or early next week. Will keep you all posted.

PS - Yes, I know I said the weather was foul, and I've just noticed that the sky behind Russ in the photo is bright blue! Take my word for it - it had been raining heavily just before we set out, rained again not long after the photo was taken, and the wind was icy!!