Nottingham

The two little ships arrived happily at Nottingham this afternoon and so that we two skippers could go shopping for provisions at Sainsbury’s, they moored themselves neatly end to end, on the Nottingham & Beeston Canal, right outside the superstore for us.

 

‘Roots and Wings’ on the River Trent

 

Janis and I had an hour’s grace to shop before the weather, which had been kind to us all day whilst we travelled from our overnight mooring at Holme Lock, became more unsociable.

We just managed to return to the ships with our shopping before the sky darkened and leaned heavily on us, chucking it’s rain down like driving stair rods.

We waited. We had no choice and about half an hour later it eased and briefly stopped, lulling us into thinking that it was all over. So we let go quickly and moved westward along the canal. But within a few minutes the rain began again and though it was not as severe as before, it hasn’t stopped since.

 

Fragrant fields of Meadow Buttercup and Lesser Celandine.

 

We are now moored safely in spite of the rain doing it’s very best to hinder us during the process, secured to iron rings near a bridge that carries the road over to the vast Boots Factory estate. It is almost a rural mooring and I have stayed here twice before. Each time it has been very quiet and safe, with just the occasional but urgent pat-pat of feet passing by as they jog along the towpath.

 

Canada Goose Family with youngster trying to clamber out of canal

 

Having left Newark on Sunday morning the passage up the River Trent was slow going, the two little ships working incessantly against the two or three mile an hour current downstream, which never gave up trying to push them backwards. Consequently the 1.6 mph average speed attained was so much different from the pace that ‘Futurest’ had been hurtled down in the opposite direction barely a fortnight ago.

But our slow speed was good since it gave us the opportunity to view and photograph numerous and different wildlife and at this very special time of the year it was wonderful to see that Nature had been so generously plentiful again with both young fauna and flora. It was a pleasure to note that She had not forgotten us during the cold winter. As lambs frolicked and young water birds bobbed eagerly like furry ping pong balls in the river, the meadows and the new bloom of the trees shone luminously in the early sunshine in so many different unimaginable shades of green. The fragrance around was heady and stimulating making it good to be alive and part of it all.

 

The old Fellows, Morton and Clayton Warehouse, Nottingham