What happened to summer, we got thwarted by a heatwave and a drought, but it wasnt all bad.
When I left you, we were heading up to Chester, Eric had a business trip so I had a fortnight to explore that beautiful city on my own. As usual I spent half my time in the cathedral listening to heavenly music, and the other half walking around the walls. This visit I decided it was time to climb up the cathedral and do the tower tour. And as I expected the views were magnificent.
When Eric returned to Firecrest we set off south again. But the writing was on the walls or should I say water, or lack of it. Even in June we were finding mooring difficult because the water levels were dropping. But we had a family wedding to attend on the south coast so whilst we had a holiday in Sussex, Firecrest had a holiday in a marina.
On our return we reassed our cruising plans. We had planned a route that would take us onto canals we hadn’t cruised before, up the Wolverhampton flight, through Birmingham and down the Tardebigge flight, and through Droitwich towards Worcestershire and we’d return towards the east of England in the autumn after coming up the Avon. But dire warnings of the summer being worse than that of ’76 and restrictions already being impossed, we knew we had to plan to cruise to a place of safety.
The combination of the extreme heat and the uncertainties ahead of us zapped the enthusiasm for cruising. CRT’s reluctance to publish cruising restrictions, in order to protect the hire industry is understandable, but when its staring you in the face that the resevoirs are empty, it makes it very difficult for liveaboards. We knew we wanted to overwinter in the east of England, but how were we going to get there. The Atherstone flight was bound to be closed but for how long and could we get ahead of a closure. And for that matter would we find enough water on the other side. After last summer’s lockdown, we decided to cut our losses. we knew there was a safe space in Fazeley that was deep enough for Firecrest to moor at. But we had to time our arrival, such that we didnt fall foul of any of the standard mooring restrictions, and maintain a secondary plan just in case lockdown didnt happen.
We made it, this may look like an identical photo to last summer, it probably is, we were in exactly the same spot. Even the lovely people we had met last year came out to greet us. Now we just had to hold our own amd wait for CRT admit defeat. Which they did, only instead of lifting all the mooring restrictions like they’d done last year, they only lifted the 14 day restriction, meaning anyone on a 2 or 7 day visitor mooring had to respect them. And guess what, even though theres no signage this location turns out to be a 7 day mooring. We entered a discussion with CRT explaining our deep draft and they begrudging gave us permission to stay. The mooring officer checking the boats was completely understanding and gave us his permission to stay. How come such a peaceful way of life can become so stressful. But once we’d got the burocracy out of the way, we settled down to bake in the sunshine. Eric was busy working so I decided to jump ship and return home.
The bricks and mortar isnt such a bad place to be, I dont get to enjoy misty mornings but I often get a fabulous sun set.
And the bird life was somewhat unexpected when I found an interloper had moved into the neighbourhood.
And our plans to celebrate our Ruby wedding anniversary in style was someone postponed in favour of an autumnal party yet to be announced- but didnt we make a lovely couple in 1986.
Back to today, I am back on board Firecrest, and we are cruising again. We’ve escaped from Fazeley and we are going to attempt a cruising route that we’ve not done before.
We are loving being able to cruise again. Our love of this lifestyle is not diminished.
The summer wasn’t a write off, we didn’t get to to do the things we set out to do, but we spent more time with friends and family. And we took the opportunity to go places by road instead of water.