On Days like Today ….

On days like today, when the wind and the rain are both in seriously determined moods, the hire-boaters have it pretty much to themselves!  As it’s somewhere we’ve never been, we had intended cycling into Derby but, today, that has no appeal either!

Sawley marina are doing very good business at the moment in the hiring out of their “Canal Time” fleet.  When you pay out lots of £££££££££ to hire a boat, you’ve got to use it whatever the weather!  Of course you have.  “Been there, done that.”  These days when the weather is grim, we just stay put and find other things to do:-

This table has been awaiting transformation for over a year.  Whether the weather will allow us to get out the barbecue and show it off on the towpath this year remains to be seen. 

At the moment it’s all a bit of a joke really isn’t it?  We left Crick marina seven weeks ago fearful that there would be insufficient water ‘to float our boat’.  Now, we are fearful about going on the River Trent and down to Boston because there’s too much of it!!  Oh well, plans can always change!

 

Returning to the subject of hire boats:-

Since we have been out of the  marina this year, not one hire boat has passed us going too fast whilst we have been moored up.  This doesn’t just apply to the “Canal Time” boats, it’s been pretty much all of them.  What has happened?  There was a time not so very long ago when it was a major grumble amongst the private boat brigade.  Mind you, that’s not to say that private boat owners always slow down when passing moored boats because they definitely do not!  Some of them are the worst offenders.

Talking yesterday to an obviously experienced hire-boater, I was told that the general practice now amongst the hire companies is to issue hirers with training DVD’s to watch in the comfort of their own homes.  He told me that, previously, written information was issued but that few people actually bothered to read it prior to the start of their holiday.  DVD’s are proving to be much more alluring!  Apparently, the consequences of going too fast passed moored boats is well illustrated.  So, ‘well done’ to all the hire-boat companies – praise where praise is due.  Mind you, I wouldn’t mind having a couple of spare copies myself to ‘present’ ceremoniously to those in the private sector whose behaviour indicates the need!