A late start on a cool morning with the children enjoying the playground and me suffering from a chill and then a trip on The Little Lady through Godmanchester Lock and into Huntingdon for the family to enjoy ‘time at leisure in resort’. Then back to The Lady for the cruise back to Little Paxton where a range of jobs awaited me before to bed a little under the weather
We slept deep and long until 6.00am and then I persuaded Di to get out of her sleeping bag and make the morning drinks. We needed the boat heating again this morning, with cabin temperatures of 48degF soon rising to 65degF. I managed to get up, washed and dressed and, despite some weakness in my legs and pains in my stomach, was quite able to join in. The girls had a last play in the playground and Daniel rather foolishly joined too enthusiastically on one side of the seesaw and propelled them off of the other end like a catapult – bruising poor Debbie in the process. She had to go back to bed with a hot water bottle to recover. I ran The Lady’s engine for an hour, charging up the batteries, which were low, and then we all transferred to Daniel’s boat and locked through Godmanchester lock and cruised to Huntingdon.
Daniel moored us at the bridge and we walked to the town centre, dropping off Daniel and Debbie at the cinema to see a film. Di, Della and I went to a new coffee lounge for our morning drink, then parted company so that each of us could do some shopping. Met outside the cinema at 12.30pm and then went to the Starburger eating place for lunch. Back to the boat after, with me being delayed in the Abbey National for 20 minutes due to their inefficiency. The cruise back to Godmanchester, then all (except Daniel) aboard The Lady for the cruise back to Little Paxton. The locks of Brompton and Offord caused few problems and we were all home by teatime. The long task of unloading The Lady and, for me, also putting the Hayling View back on an even footing. I switched both halves of the water heating on, turned the water on and started the swimming pool filling that had got quite low. Checked the post and answering machine, but nothing much contained therein, then decommissioned The Lady, turning off gas, batteries and storing the fenders, lifebuoy, flag mast and red ensign and ropes etc. What light was left, I used to tend the ducks and doves (the one chick left is now dead, but I ringed two new ones) and vacuumed the swimming pool, cleaning the filters and restoring the water level again. After dark, I went in to read Deborah a Country Companion, then checked up on Daniel’s room before retiring to my bedroom early to write my journal. I was not sick today, but had diarrhoea and was still quite weak and so opted for an early night.