Finishing off

The weather the next morning was glorious, and absolutely perfect for painting. There were still no other boats with us as we cast off.

Husband's Bosworth Tunnel was plain sailing this time, with only a small and very timid boat crawling along the wall towards us half-way through.

When we arrived at Welford Junction, we were very surprised to find just two other boats moored at this well-known painting spot, one of them the Cheese Boat off to their next destination, there to sell their Welsh cheeses.

We moored, and we painted. I did the first coat of blacking on and below the rubbing strake, Grace primed the scrapes and chips on the black deck paint above it. The sun shone, the birds sang lustily, and the painting didn't take long.

The next morning, we completed the job. A second coat of hull blacking, and black deck paint on the panel above. When we considered it to be dry enough, we left for the marina. We were short of food, we had no bread or milk at all, and we had a large, smelly bag of rubbish to get rid of. Unfortunately, the nearest rubbish skip and shop to this point are in Yelvertoft, so we had no real choice but to move on.

We played with the thought of continuing south for another week, but we have to be back at the start of May to meet up with friends, and we decided against it. It's looking as though our longest cruising is going to be done later in the year than usual.

Back to Yelvertoft, then.

NB Blue Belle was back in the berth next to us, getting themselves ready to leave the next day to go to Alvecote, their next trading place.