Shopping for antique silver and pictures in Huntingdon before our cruise home, stopping at Godmanchester for lunch and at Buckden Marina for supplies before home to Paxton to find our young dove chick dead through starvation and its mother dead from predation, returning to a mountain of mail as the government is saved by the Civil Service union opting not to strike
Myself awake first at our Huntingdon moorings and to put the kettle on and switch the batteries over so as to start the heating. The children already awake and the boat cold, but it soon warms up with our new heating. Our morning routine and then the children out after breakfast to play on the adventure playground as we clear up The Lady and get ready for the walk to Huntingdon. A bright morning with a cold wind as we set off and Daniella has the cover fixed to her pushchair to stop her cough and cold getting any worse through the weather. We divide and I make for the antique shops. I spot an old silver knife at the small shop near the river bridge, but go on up to the antique galleries near Barclays bank, where the assistant serves me a cup of coffee and I look at fiddle spoons and an old set of six tea knives. Eventually I buy a pair of 1819 London spoons, another pair of 1813 (which I later find to be of 1833), an 8oze 1923 ladle, made by William Chawner of London, and also the pistol-handled tea knives said to be of 1893, but I believe really of 1918. They cost me respectively £44, £65, £110 and £40, which is less than the asking and at the trade prices in view of the purchase size. Well pleased with my purchase I rendezvous with Diana at the coffee bar and after, back to buy a miniature of St Neots Bridge for £30, which print comes from an old engraving, which shows the bridge before it was widened and extended in the last century. We walk down to buy the single silver knife for £2.75 and, whilst the family make for The Lady, I drop in at Headley Stokes to see the drawings for our house connection and learn that they have been posted already and await our return.
We set off on a much stiller day and lock through Godmanchester and moor up there for lunch at the Old Tea Shop where we eat ‘crocks’ of shepherd’s pie and steak and kidney pie, whilst the children settle for bread and butter and then ice creams all round. We take the plunge and buy another painting – this time in water colours of Godmanchester. To The Lady and the cruise home in some sunshine and we have the saloon sliding roof back for the first time during the warmer spells. The most enjoyable spell of the week, spoilt only by some inexperienced youths shutting the Brampton Lock gates on us and causing an unnecessary delay. Before long to Buckden Marina, where their chandlery stocks are ever more impressive. We picked up our abandoned gas cylinder and also bought a new captain hat for me and a brass multi-way coat hook for The Lady. On through Offord Lock and home to our own moorings. Joan and Pete had done very well and the gardens and house were in perfect order, but my worst fears were confirmed about the Grizzle Hen when I found her missing and the chick dead. The chick had grown considerably but, with the loss of its mother, the father had deserted it and by now had won over the Blonde Qualmond from the Blue and was nesting afresh. The Grizzle had obviously become rather hungry and desperate to feed her chick without us being there to feed her regularly and had not been as cautious at the bird table as usual. However, to have been caught and the large bird table overturned is a curious thing and an act of prowess if it is a cat that did it. The steady process of unloading The Lady and then to check for urgent messages at No 39 and there were none. A mountain of mail, newspapers etc. at both houses and I could only stack it for further reading when time. Out again to The Lady and to put away the masts, flags, fenders and lifebuoy, before turning off gas and batteries for safekeeping and putting into the shed the outboard motor and fuel tank. An evening reading my personal mail before late at my silver collection. Drafts of my family settlement trusts and wills and also the preliminary house extension drawings. Much PITCOM correspondence about the Xerox visit and amongst other general mail, excellent catalogues at last from Parker Knoll on tailor made and comfortably designed furniture and they will undoubtedly be our new supplier. Until after midnight cataloguing and examining my silver with the aid of a magnifier bought from Gemma Watts in Godmanchester and the main triumph was to identify the old tea knife as a 1922 Sheffield design by Hailsworth Eyre and Co. News of the largest civil service union – the CBA – voting by a narrow majority not to strike, which lets the government off the hook.