Some time in St Ives swimming with the kids and shopping before moving The Lady on to Huntingdon Riverside park as Debbie finds a friend to play with there and then needs reassurance as she falls and bangs her head
A sound night’s sleep and I awake to the rising sun on what proves to be a warm and sunny day. Up to get the morning drinks and then to keep the baby happy whilst Diana washed and dressed. Breakfast of toast only and fruit juice to wash it down and then out to the town centre to use the telephone and establish that the swimming pool was open to visitors today, that the Norris Museum was open and that a Gateway Building Society branch was in the High Street for us to stock up with cash later. First to St Ivo pool and I collect the family and we walk up and enter. Today Della joins the rest of us in the pool, but she is very wary of it to say the least. More wrestling fun with Daniel and also to take off Debbie’s ring and inflate one of the two rings on her armbands to teach her to swim.
Back to the boat and on to the town for our money (£100 for me and £50 for Diana) and to get milk and bread. To my disgust the Norris Museum was not open as advertised, nor responded to the telephone. When I tried to phone St Ives Town Council, the museum’s trustees, I found no answer with them on holiday as well! I contented myself with a St Ives history book from the bookshop and left a note for the curator expressing my displeasure and lack of public service. Back to The Lady and off again to get some takeaway lunches and then we set off towards Huntingdon with no trouble after three days at the Waits Quay moorings. I managed to get a chance to take some video pictures of our stay at the Waits and also took more pictures as we locked through Houghton and Hemingford locks. Though the airstream was cool, the sun was hot and strong and we cruised with the sliding canopy back for the first time this trip. Eventually, we arrived at Huntingdon riverside park moorings and set off for an hours shopping in the town. We separated and I visited the antique shop near the bridge, the pet shop, where I saw koi carp and a prolifically talking parrot, the hardware shop, where I bought some brass glass plate brackets and screws and then across town to the antique shop, where nothing of interest, and Fagins, which is a hopeless junk shop. Back to The Lady by appointed rendezvous at 5.00pm and in the hot sun, I set up the portable barbeque and we had hamburgers and barbequed sausages, which were fine. After, as Diana and the baby took the sun, I worked on The Lady and fitted the new water temperature gauge, rigged up the new 12 volt soldering iron and soldered The Lady’s hi fi to a jack plug, and finally, mounted our two new framed copper etchings of St Ives and screwed them to the doors off the saloon to the galley. Late clearing up and packing away and time only to update my journal before turned to bed. Debbie found a 7 year old girlfriend on a neighbouring cruiser and had a good time playing, until finally she fell over and got an enormous bump on her forehead. As a result of that, I had to read her three stories from Aesop’s Fables and she was well afterwards, and to bed with Daniel at 10pm. The barometer rose to 1025 today, which bodes well.