Back to Base.

 We were very close to the railway line last night but conveniently the ASLEF Union had their drivers on strike and we had an extremely peaceful,night with just the occasional bleat of a sheep. In fact a train hadn't passed until after we had arrived at Cowich Lock.

Last night I managed to get the undercoat rubbed down that I had previously done and also washed and coated the partly done area near the stern. It looks a little like the hull has had a dash of dazzle paint applied, but hopefully we are no expecting a submarine attack today.

A little more paint than I want to commit to here, but a great example of dazzle paint work on the SS West Mahomet from WWI. This form of 'camouflage' was not designed to make the ship 'invisible' but to make it very difficult for a submarine of surface vessel to be able to estimate its range, course and speed. This in turn would make it difficult to calculate where it would be in the next few minutes so that setting the direction of torpedoes or shells would not be so accurate.

There was a short queue for us going down Cowich Lock, but about 6 boats waiting to come up. One was the newly revamped 'Caxton' That was owned by two famous bloggers in the past. Helen got the story from the new owner, who told her that they had been pretty well known bloggers. She obviously doesn't read this stuff. Never mind. If she does she may get in touch.

The fields appear to be very dry now, especially as a lot have been harvested now and just the yellow stubble is left. This was rough pasture, but not much there for the sheep who were keeping to the shade anyway. 

No Boats moored near the Trent Aqueduct, but there seemed to be plenty of water in the river as we passed over it.

There were plenty of boats moored up as we approached the centre of the town. We had also caught up with the boats that had gone down Colwich Lock ahead of us. We had seen the NB 'Dancing Sheep', in Penkridge I think it was, and it was only as we passed Naomi's Landing that I realised that this is where it was normally found.

Rothern's are contracting for C&RT doing another length of Armco on the way into Rugeley. There will be even more moorings for folk wanting to stop and shop here soon.

I resisted my usual picture of the Armitage Shanks Factory, and istead just passed opted to take a picture of a small read island. It made me ponder if the reed plant is designed to break up like this so as to colonise away from the parent plant. I also wondered if the it carried it's own little world with it. In the 'Old Days' off the coast of Africa and Asia quite a way out to see, you quite often used to see small little rafts of logs or bamboo lashed together with a palm frond sticking up from it to indicate its presence. The local fishermen used them to congregate the fish as they seemed to attract the small fish under them, in the shade, and so the bigger ones knew where to come, as did the fishermen.

We arrived back at the marina and headed straight on to the service pontoon. I guessed 150 litres would be needed, but it only took 147! I should really start logging everything and do my annual comparisons. I got out of the habit over COVID and not having everything to hand. It seems out neighbour has sold his boat and returned to land so we have a space on both sides for now. Helen and I managed to get the st'bd side washed, despite it still being a bit warm to work, but I wanted to get it ready for painting the next day. I tried to change the fuel filter but couldn't budge it, and it was still a bit warm. I was sure I had bought a filter strap/chain wrench but could I heck as like find it! I decided to put it off until the next day, put the TV aerial up and decided to see if we could make any sense of Sean Bean and Nicola Walker in 'Marriage'.