Whilst Mike went off on his travels, Christine tested out her recovery status by doing two loads of laundry and buckets of floor washing. Even though we have not had any muddy days since we had the boat cleaned throughout for us at the last break in cruising, there was still very mucky water to empty from the buckets.
Mike set off just before half past ten to walk to the nearest bus stop just outside the marina and Premier Inn. From the timetable on the post he discovered that a bus was due in 2 minutes (earlier then he had scheduled - the route to Nuneaton is four services an hour, not evenly spaced) but nothing arrived. IOn he end it did arrive but was perhaps 5 or 6 minutes late, which it caught up before arriving at its destination, the Bus Station in Nuneaton.
Officially a five minute walk but for Mike nearer to ten, the Rail Station is actually quite close and, after buying his ticket and checking the change point, there was plenty of time to go over to Platform 2 for the loos and back and then in time to buy a latte. This two carriage train shuttles between here and Leamington Spa, via Coventry. It was already waiting at the platform after its previous run.
It arrived on time and there was just 7 minutes before the second departure on to Banbury (the train itself was destination London Marylebone). Again, it ran perfectly to time. Mike then had a short walk to the Bus Station alongside Castle Quay shopping centre.
The final leg of the journey was a scheduled bus that passes through Cropredy. `It turned out to be a large minibus with a very regular set of passengers. The driver even knew who to expect - this is actually a relic of a Market Day service but is useful for folk out in the villages around the town who do not have a car. It only runs once a day in each direction so it was just fortuitous that Mike was able to use it today rather having to lash out on a taxi. (His bus pass was to his surprise valid on this route!) He was even dropped off right outside the marina entrance.
Before long the satnav was programmed and the return trip could begin, with an ETA texted back to base. Although we topped up the battery when we were last at Cropredy, we were not confident that it would see us back home again. So, Mike headed directly to an InstaVolt Charging Station just four minutes away from Trinity Marina. It was a pretty fast charge (much better than an Osprey one that was equally close) and we now have more than enough for the return home tomorrow.
All of this not uncommon on our present day car shuffles and reminds us how much has changed since we first took to canal cruising. It is unlikely that we could have done this back then - although we do recall one or two occasions when we met up with passengers in some unlikely places! What is difficult to recall is just how we found the information to do that in an era when we spent a lot of time closely monitoring OS maps for public telephone boxes when we need to be in touch with someone (especially if we had a breakdown)
Reminiscence therapy time: on one of our first longer cruises with Fiona (a 20 ft ex BW hire boat with a decrepit 5 hp outboard and almost none of the facilities expected today) we were on the Leeds and Liverpool when a large stone lurking under water broke off one of the two blades on the prop. Quite how we are unsure now, shrouded alas in the mists of time, but Mike was able to source a replacement and then to fit it all well within the space of a single day. We do remember that the only way to get to the boatyard was to hitchhike. We think it was somewhere in the Blackburn or Burnley area. At least we did have a set of the early Nicholsons guides which were extremely helpful in many ways. These were from the generation in which the map extracts were monochrome and the canal drawn as a straight line.
Back to reality and we now have to think about loading jup the car - alas it does not look as if this marina have any trolleys for moorers to use.
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