What to do on a Rainy Day

What can a fair weather sailor do on a day that is vigorously punctuated by thundery showers?

Well cruising is out for a start so why not, just for a change, do some blogging? Far too few have been written by me up until now in this year of 2015.

 

Mrs Mallard on a log

 

The reason of course is that there have been so many things to see this time and places for us to visit and it seems there have been far more of these than in previous years. Naturally this is the reason too for our dawdling progress along the Kennett and Avon Canal. So many boats that left their winter moorings far later than us to make this passage to Bristol and back, have long ago caught us up, overtaken and met us on the way back. To so many boaters getting to and seeing the destination is the most important part of any passage, whereas to Janis and I the getting there is most pleasurable and the time or even the day hardly matters.

So today, complete with umbrella and computer I set off, splashing my way along the towpath to find Devizes public library and their free Wi-Fi. However having sat here at a table for some three hours sending necessary emails and downloading from my camera many days worth of photographs I have only just settled to write my blog.

But I can now safely report that we are definitely on the way home to Warwick. We need to be there by the first of November and I reckon that we might just about make it for that time.

 

Janis at the bottom of the Caen Hill Flight

 

On Friday afternoon we puffed our way up the Caen Hill Flight of locks and arrived at Devizes. The day was dull and threatening rain but in fact it managed to hold off until the following afternoon when we were blasted by the thunder and lightning. Delilah-Rose, my granddaughter and her mother Millie together with my son Rupert, Delilah’s dad, had come to visit us overnight on Saturday and the almost continuous rain over the two days that they were here rather curtailed our entertainment. But we did manage to venture ashore on one occasion before they had to leave and we walked along the towpath, jumping or squelching round the many puddles in our way, as far as the top lock of Caen Hill and back. Conveniently when we arrived there, as it began to rain again, we were able to slip into the adjacent café for tea and cakes.

 

Delilah, Janis and myself at Devizes

 

They all left yesterday evening so we are quietly on our own again soon to be bound for Hungerford and then Newbury.