Boats -v- Garden chores!

Well I am making some plans in anticipation of moving our boat from Torksey on the Fossdyke and eventually heading onto the South Yorkshire Navigation.

Torksey Lock.

This means our first trip down the River Trent as far as Keadby. Depending on the tides we might need to make a stop-over at West Stockwith. However, I am hoping to make the trip in one run. We will call into Doncaster for a few days and then move up river at our leisure to our home mooring at Tinsley.

The anchor we bid on eBay for has finally arrived. I don't think it is going to be big enough for any serious use on tidal rivers like the Trent. But it will suffice as an emergency backup or for use on our home non tidal river. Looks like a trip to a local chandler is going to be called for.

Did a couple of bids on some life jackets for me and the Memsahib. I hope that we never need to use them in anger. However, after Mag's trip over the side on the North Oxford canal in the middle of February. We are now prepared for any more such eventualities.

The Memsahib is away for the weekend in Birmingham visiting family. So being at a loss for something to do, I started out by having a trip into Sheffield to bank a couple of cheques that we will be using to pay for the boat. Went by motorcycle as it is always quicker mainly because I can trickle past all the traffic queues as people wait to go into Meadow Hell (Meadow Hall) shopping centre. Then I made a start on some long delayed garden chores. This is all part of the get the property ready to sell campaign.

The garden needs a fair bit of work doing on it, so I started by cutting the lawn which was getting a bit long due to all the rain. Then I started pruning a well overgrown evergreen bush in the hedgerow. It took about two hours to hack it back into submission.

There is an old "Morello” sweet eating cherry tree in the hedgerow that was "over pollarded" by the previous owners some 10 years ago. It has slowly been loosing the battle to survive. It has very few leaves on it this year! But there was a few flowers in the spring, but nothing like the number of previous years. It must have been a magnificent tree in its prime. I say this because it has always had a good covering of flowers and a good crop of cherries every year even whilst in decline.

The cherries were very sweet and full of goodness so much so that the birds would devour the majority leaving few for us. I don't mind the birds helping themselves so I have a replacement "Morello" cherry tree already growing in a large pot.