Moored like grandma’s stockings

For two nights we’ve been moored like grandmother’s stockings.  As a small boy I can remember sitting on the floor of her house and looking at her legs which would be encased in thick stockings.  Invariably they would be wrinkled in heavy folds just above her ankles.

The pound we have been moored in gradually drains during the night and whilst we might go to bed on the level, we’d slowly develop a list as one edge of the boat settled on the bottom.  This resulted in our heads rising on the crossover bed.  Eventually gravity would take over and in our sleep we’d slowly start sliding feet first towards the bottom of the bed. Initially our bodies would brace our legs against the wall as we slept on, but eventually they would collapse and just like grandma’s stocking we’d wake in the early hours to find ourselves in a wrinkled heap at the bottom of the bed.

Last night was different.  At 10pm one of the other moored boaters walked up to the next lock and partially raised one top and bottom thereby ensuring the water leaking from the pound was replaced.