Saturday 2nd June
Today we were away before quarter to nine as the weather forecast wasn’t promising for later today and set off through Shardlow, as we passed the moorings were we stopped last year we collected a woven bag on the prop and had to struggle on to Derwent Mouth Lock before I could stop to clear it.
Another boat arrived while I was ‘down the weed-hatch‘ so we were able to share the lock with them and then we were on the River Trent, passing the mouth of the River Derwent [see, you guessed there was clue in the name of the last lock]
These big rivers always seem scary to begin with, but in just 15 minutes we were at Sawley Flood Lock which strangely was closed but there was only about an inch difference in level. Immediately beyond the lock was Sawley Marina where we tied up outside.
We have been considering taking a marina mooring to have a few more ‘creature comforts’ during the winter months, so we decided to test the waters (so to speak) so we had arranged to spend some time here. We reported to reception and were told our allocated berth, but when we got to it it was occupied by another boat. Neighbouring boaters were very helpful and suggested we temporarily moored in another free space while the management sorted things out.
We made ourselves at home and even had electricity to plug into. Oh, and the forecasters lied about the rain and we had a gloriously sunny, hot afternoon.
Sunday 3rd June
We woke up quite late this morning and after breakfast at The Marina Café, got in our car (which we had moved up here with Barry & Ruth last month) and explored some of the surrounding area.
We got back to Sawley around 5 o’clock and decided that it was too hot to cook dinner so we went to the nearby Plank & Leggit pub for a Sunday Roast, we were told, as they we busy there would be a 30 minute wait which actually turned into 45 minutes. When the food arrived we were ready for it and despite the cauliflower being stone cold we enjoyed our meals. Two of the serving staff asked the usual “is everything OK?” but despite telling them about the cold cauli did nothing more than apologise.
When we got back to the boat our neighbours said they would have recommended somewhere else if we had asked, but they also had a message from the marina management to say our allocated berth was now vacant.
Monday 4th June
A few weeks ago I bought some second hand batteries on eBay, from a fellow boater, so now we are re-united with our car for a while we drove over to Great Haywood Marina to collect them. We called into Long Eaton on the way back for some shopping and while it is well served by Tesco, Asda and Aldi the town centre itself looks a bit ‘tired’.
On our return to the marina we moved our boat to our allocated mooring and now have new neighbours and a family of coots nesting next to us.