Moving on down.

We returned to Gloucester because we had been invited to a family and friends BBQ get-together. There were eleven of us and we had a wonderful time in the garden. The rain held off until late afternoon we then moved into the lounge to watch the Queens Diamond Jubilee Boat Pageant on the Thames which seemed a long drawn out job with useless commentaries on various things, with the exception of boats.  Obviously they hadn’t researched enough information on all the boats taking part. I remember they said that ‘President’ must be a working boat because it had covers over it! We were rather disappointed by it all and glad that we were in good company enjoying the party indoors. By the time we arrived back on-board Oakfield the rain was quite heavy and the wind was making waves on the canal. Anyway we were rocked to sleep nicely. On Thursday the weather was really stormy with heavy rain, thunder and gusting winds. We were blown about so much and the wind blew through the bedroom portholes sounding just like in the film of ‘Wuthering Heights’. It was so noisy and turbulent that we hardly slept at all that night! Friday we had our Grandson for the day, so we were kept busy playing, reading stories and doing puzzles. We walked to Sainsbury’s Cafe mid-morning for a break as the weather was a bit gloomy. Needless to say we were exhausted by the evening and as the gales had subsided we slept very well that night.

    

As our mooring time was up we made our way south again. There are quite a few pairs of Swans with signets on the Sharpness canal, some have only two survivors and some we have seen with six.

One proud mum brought her fluff-balls over to see us on piggy-back, but they kept sliding off into the water. There is not much room for five growing youngsters on her back now.

We passed this monster which maybe a live-aboard and seems to be in the process of renovation and re-painting.

The moorings are a little overgrown here, so I had to get the shears out to trim the grass.  We notice that ‘they’ are trying to limit the mooring times around Saul Junction quite considerably. The 14 days maybe cut by half, and the 48 hrs moorings to just 6 hrs, so no boat will be able to moor overnight here. Of course it has all been done in the worst possible way by not consulting anyone about the changes. Meanwhile there are conflicting permanent and temporary notices, so you can take your pick which one you go by!