Lovedean - Thursday and Friday (walking, on the Minstrel)

Thursday 16 August 2018

Thursday was a long day, but not in a bad way.  I just had to get up early to pick up Ken & Gill at Heathrow, which is roughly an hour's drive from here.  The bad part of it was that I had to get up at 4 am and drive in the dark, and part of the way in the rain.  However, it was mainly highway and I only had a slight problem finding the parking lot for terminal 5.

It was great to finally get to meet them personally after all the email messages and skyping with each other.  They are a lovely couple.

We were home pretty early, as you can imagine, and for part of the day we each did our own thing.  By mid afternoon the rain had cleared somewhat and we were all ready for a walk.  They took me to the road opposite the house where I started my earlier walks, but they know the ropes!  You don't walk on the roads apparently, but in the fields, like we did in Wales.  Plenty of styles to climb over, and also plenty of horses to meet on your walk.  I would not have been able to do this on my own, because there are no paths or signs to show you where to go.  It was a lovely walk though and there were again lots of blackberries to snack on.  There were plenty of stinging nettles as well and I will be feeling the stings for days.... ;-)  (I forgot about the plantain at the time)

Gill cooked a nice meal and we had loads of soft fruit for dessert, with a bit of my favourite ice cream: salted caramel.

Oh, and earlier in the day Ken found a nice surprise for me in the mail: a parking fee for having overstayed our parking limit in Waterlooville earlier on!  A hefty one a that: in my currency $110!!!  I could have done pleasanter things with that money. :-(

I finally booked my return trip home, as I had wanted to discuss something about it with Ken & Gill.  I will be leaving early Sunday morning and arrive in Brisbane on Monday night.

After that it didn't take long for the three of us to look up our beds.

Friday 17 August 2018

Ken had been a bit worried about the boat, as the man next to their boat has said that he had had to disconnect the bilge pump.  Without being to technical it was important to find out if one or two bilge pumps had been disconnected as one of them was needed to work regularly to keep the water out.  

So, they offered to go and take me for a ride upstream.  Having had the boat for 25 years, and thus driven the same road for that length of time, they showed me all the quaint little villages with thatched cottages and old churches on the way.  Of course, the navigator had sent us on quite a different route, so Wim and I didn't get to see all that the first time around. 

Although we were on part of the motorway to Winchester, Gill took the country roads on the way back, as the motorway had been quite congested in the morning near one of the big roundabouts.  On the way back it would have been worse as it was Friday afternoon and a lot of people head for the seaside.

We left a bit late for a day out with a long drive, but Ken had to drop off the car that I had driven as it had indeed a slow puncture.  It took us approx. 2 1/2 hours to get to Great Bedwyn and the boat.  When we finally got there it looked like we wouldn't be going anywhere as the people that had used the boat last (home exchangers like us) hadn't shut down the motor properly and the batteries had drained.  Luckily Ken got it going, because the house batteries had enough charge to jump start the other batteries, so off we went.  

Church at Great Bedwyn

Ken let me steer for a bit and I also helped Gill at the locks.  I knew a bit about them by now as I had been watching a tutorial on Youtube. It was no big deal, certainly with two people handling them, but unfortunately we didn't get as far as we had wanted to go.  There was a boat moored inside one of the locks upstream and the owner came out to tell us that the lock had to stay shut for a while.  Some oaf had left the locks open and the upstream part of the canal had been drained of too much water, so the level was very low.  It showed, because a moored boat close to the lock was leaning precariously to one side. 

As we had no need to go any further we turned (Ken's boat is short enough to do so in the wider bits of the canal) and we found a mooring where we had lunch in peace and quiet...

After lunch Ken worked a bit on the boat, as a lot of water still had to be drained, because of the bilge pump not having worked for a while.

When that was done we made our way back, shut up everything and made our way home.

Walking past the church that I had taken a picture of earlier in the day I remembered that there is a whole series of church caches in England, so I looked up quickly if there would be one here, and yes, there was, so I had a quick look and feel and I had a little magnetic cache container in my hand. ;-)

#1984 - Church Micro 1020 - Great Bedwyn (cache)

On the way back I took a picture of a group of houses and a church that I quite liked and hope to draw one day.

We picked up 'Chinese' on the way home, because it was fairly late and of course Gill didn't feel like cooking at that time of the night.

We enjoyed our meal in the orangery, as the weather was still fine and it was actually warm again.  

After dinner it didn't take long for me to feel weary enough to go upstairs and find my bed....