Sunday 13th May 2012

I apologise for delays in writing, this is due to lots of visitors and stowaways!

Sunday 13th May 2012

The dock was quiet this morning and our view from the kitchen window was better as our neighbours had left yesterday morning. The duck boats didn't start until well after 10.30am so we had a very calm start to the day.

Being on mains power you just have to use the washing machine! So it was put on and plans for showers to follow, but oh dear, the water pump wasn't making the right noise. We turned the tap on in the kitchen and we'd run out of water. Hose pipe out and with a handy tap we filled the tank to the top, this took approximatly 30 mins. Then the washing could commence. We realised that we must have had 5 showers, 4 dishwashers, and numerous kettle fulls of water since last filling, so not really a surprise to be empty, but being near to a tap had made us a little complacent.

Whilst waiting for the washing to finish we counted 6 jellyfish around our boat of various sizes. The water is so clear you can see the bottom of the dock which must be around 6m deep. We had a full cooked breakfast and then decide to go shopping to stock up for our return journey which is two days shorter. We went on the hunt for celeriac and goats yoghurt, which I don't think have hit Liverpool as we had no luck, carrots would have to do. Whilst shopping I had a phone call from a friend of Kathys we'd shared a villa with for a few days in Lanzarote last year. We had bored Ashley and our other house mates with tales about WD, so he and his partner wanted to come and have a look. We had an hour to finish shopping before more visitors. We got back to WD to watch 4 narrowboats and 1 widebeam arrive into the dock.

I was glad that I'd made more biscuit dough on Saturday so popped biscuits in the oven which had just cooled before they arrived with Kathy. Tea, chats, guided tour of WD and lots of biscuit eating later and we were left by two very envious boys, Sam trying to work out if he could come with us out of Liverpool in the morning. So what could we cram in of the museums before they closed?! Museum of Liverpool had about half an hour left open when we walked in, we only managed to wander around the groundfloor and shop before they started to kick people out. Then we tried the Tate, they closed at 5.50pm so we should have a bit more time in there. The first Gallery had an exibition by Martin Creed. The four TV screens with people vomiting kind of put us off his exhibition, so we headed upstairs to "This is Scupture" exhibit. This was less stomach churning than the ground floor and had a varied mix of work. Announcements started that they were closing the gallery, so our cultural hour was up!

We wandered back towards WD around Albert Dock and found a new way into the moorings at the bottom of the slipway the Ducks use. We were half expecting to return to a stowaway (Kath, Micks sister) but she hadn't arrived. We retied the ropes as the wind had got up again and adjusted the button at the back. Kath arrived, cups of tea and showers, and then to try out The Baltic Fleet for a pint and some food.

The pub is a micro brewery and the beer was very nice, unfortunatly they only had three pies left from the day, so we decided to try elsewhere.  Sam rang during the evening and said he would join us in the morning before 9am.

A walk around the corner brought us to The Hub, which had a varied menu and seemed quite busy. We enjoyed duck, hot pot and a pie between us and a pint followed by puddings. The wind on our return to the boat had really got up so we checked the ropes again.

Luckily Kath is quite happy sleeping on the sofa with both cushions on top of each other, so no bed masterclass was needed.

Smart Gauge at start of day 100, at end 100, 0 locks, 0 miles, 6 jellyfish, 1 stowaway, 3 visitors, 1 museum and 1 gallery needing to be revisited,16 biscuits baked and consumed.