The mooring last night was peaceful and the arrival of a second boat moored behind us gave some confidence about security in numbers.
The yellow orb was in the sky this morning and the local swan family put in an appearance at the side hatch looking for the “sucker”. Duly fed they moved of to beg elsewhere. The plan was for me to walk the towpath to Loughborough Town Basin checking the availability of moorings en-route. This proved to be difficult when the said swan family did a Gandalf the Grey on me “Thou Shalt Not Pass”.
This proves two things. 1. Swans have a selective memory. 2. I know a swan family that isn’t being fed tomorrow morning! Rather than resort to violence I detoured away from the towpath and consequentially came upon the Loughborough railway station. The large circular detour brought me back to the towpath on the opposite side to the swan family. That’s when they decided to vacate the towpath and go swimming……. B@stards!
At the Chain Bridge (which is actually made of brick and concrete… no chain to be seen) the canal does a 90° turn to the right. The turn to the left goes down a short arm to the Town Basin where there are six moorings on short ‘finger’ pontoons and a winding point.
Left to the basin and right to continue up the Grand Union.
The basin has what looks to be a reasonable new Travelodge at the end and the area appears to have been recently redeveloped.
Having completed the quick recce we decided to move closer to the Chain Bridge where we would be within easy walking distance of the local Aldi supermarket. It was an easy 700 metre cruise until we found it wasn’t possible to moor against the edge. Probably the reason why this particular gap was vacant. The ground was also very soft so we used the anchor plates I’d made at Aldermaston to hold the fore and aft mooring ropes with two pins each.
Jan walked into Loughborough for some retail therapy whilst I donned my blue playsuit and gave the big noisy green thing in the garden shed a blood transfusion. The engine has now completed 500 hours. This time I got a little more cunning and laid the rubber floor mat on top of the hot engine thereby minimising the potential of burning my nether regions! No impurities or water in the diesel filter so that’s a good sign. The alternator belts are also looking good after the latest tensioning.
Jan made it back to Waiouru as the heavens opened. We need more water under the baseplate to get against the bank, but we didn’t want it to be delivered vertically! The forecast for tomorrow doesn’t look much better.
Future plans have been rearranged. If there is a vacant pier in the basin tomorrow morning we’ll take it and use the location to visit Tesco & Sainsbury’s to do a major restock. Jan can also visit the large Chinese Supermarket around the other side of Sainsbury’s. We’ve yet to decide whether we’ll stay the night in the basin. It might be noisy!
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