Staying put at Hill Farm Marina.

We had a very pleasant, productive and lazy day today.  It’s a bit of a shame that the brightness of the day always wakes us so early and we were sitting having a cup of tea at 7:30.  We took our time with a few domestic chores; cleaning, Dysoning (nice to have plug in power), laundry, etc.  Then we looked ahead to see how we could manage to be at Tardebigge on a weekend to get some help from experienced younger members of the boating fraternity.

David and his son Harry arrived about 12.00 to top up the diesel and do a pumpout.  We were slightly disappointed that this did not involve the Dennis fire engine which we had spotted yesterday but this turned out to be one of David’s hobbies.

The fuel came on a small trolley-mounted tank with an electric pump so the unit could be pulled along the pontoons to wherever the diesel inlet was on the boat.  The pumpout unit was specifically built for the job and was towed by a Landrover.  It seemed to have a really powerful suction but gave us a bit of a scare when it suddenly stopped.  It turned out that the spark plug lead had come loose and, once fixed, the job was completed without further cause for concern.

After a quick snack lunch we walked into Wootton Wawen where we visited the local farm shop with all its associated craft shops.  We then strolled along to the Saxon Sanctuary, Warwickshire’s oldest church, originally built by Benedictine monks in the 700s.