Kintbury and the Stalking Bloggers

Last night we were on the 24 hour moorings immediately above Hungerford Lock.  Obviously fellow bloggers nb Tentarice and Cleddau spotted us because we received an email in the early evening inviting us to say hello and advising us they were moving off the 48 hour moorings below the lock the following morning and we could take their place if we wanted more time in Hungerford.

That was very kind of Jenny, Chris Sue and Ken but we already had a Baldrick cunning plan.  The Three mobile coverage at Hungerford is very poor.  It actually took an hour for the blog post to be uploaded. I needed to make my weekly Skype call to dear old mum on Sunday so we decided to move on.  The cunning plan was to get an early night and be the first to leave Hungerford.  We would then arrive at Kintbury just as the hire boaters would be leaving that location.

At 6.30am I was at Tesco buying bread and by 8am nb Maid of the locks and Waiouru quietly slipped their moorings and sneaked past Tentarice & Cleddau on tick over.  No sign of curtains twitching and I thought we had got away with our escape.

We only moved a short distance to the CRT facilities block where we topped up the water tank whilst Pete walked their dog.

I watched Pete feed the elsan with french brown onion soup  (I’m pleased we have a pump out) whilst the ladies discussed secret woman’s business.

Only three locks today but it did get busy at one. 

By 11am we had arrived In Kintbury to find all but three of the moored boats had departed.  After lunch I decided to wash Waiouru’s roof.  The roof is feeling very gritty and I suspect this is a result of the recent rain.  I was about to walk down to the water point to fill my two buckets when those stalking bloggers arrived mooring further down by the water point.

There was a relatively brief blogger meeting before I returned to Waiouru with the buckets of water.  I hadn’t appreciated the amount of heat build-up from the sun and managed to give myself a 3rd degree burn on the right knee when kneeling on the cabin roof.  There was no pain and I hadn’t realised I done it until the skin peeled off and stuck the the cabin roof. 

Later in the afternoon Jan, Alison, Pete and I had a boaters meeting where we identified numerous important issues and agreed solutions.  You can all sleep easy tonight knowing we are on the case!   It’s amazing how grape juice assists in the development of solutions to complex problems.

Yes I know, the side of the boat needs another wash and polish!