A weekend interlude

I mentioned last post that we had moored outside Swanley Bridge Marina for a reason. We had to go up to Yorkshire on Friday to pick up something, so we went into the marina and hired a car from Enterprise.

That’s us, next to the boat with the white canopy



We’d bought ourselves a late Christmas present which had to be collected from home…

Our first Apple product, and nearly the last. It’s an iPad 1, if Mags gets on alright with it we might upgrade her!

I nearly threw it in the cut on Saturday, trying to install Facebook and iBooks on it. It runs ios 5.1.1, the Facebook app claims to need ios 6x, and iBooks ios 7x.
App Store didn’t offer an older (legacy) application for either, so I was getting a little wound up. Then I came across a forum where someone had posted a query with the same problem. There is a work around; you have to download the latest versions on to your laptop through iTunes, then, when you log onto App Store with the iPad it offers an earlier version, compatible with the earlier ios. Before you ask, no, you can’t upgrade the iPad 1 to ios 7!
And I thought Windows could be tricky! Anyway, we got there in the end…

Yesterday, still having the car, we popped across to near Wrexham to have lunch with friends Val and John. Another good day had by all.

This morning dawned bright, sunny and cool, I’d taken the car back by 11:00, filled with water, got rid of rubbish and unplugged from shore power. All ready to go then.

Heading for the exit on a beautiful morning
Whoever designed this marina used a bit of common sense. There are two service wharfs, one outside the entrance on the canal side, and this one just inside. A much better solution than having boats manoeuvring and reversing in the confined waters of some marinas.

Out on the canal again, under Bridge 5
The north side of the bridge is fully repaired, this side is a “work in progress” and has been for some time.

We didn’t move far, just 20 minutes before we moored up between Bridges 4 and 5. No need to go any further, batteries were fully charged from the shore connection. Anyway, I had some wood to chop. We ran out of stove-sized lumps yesterday morning, so had to burn solid fuel last night. Horrors! With wood on the roof, too! It didn’t seem right to be chopping up wood on the pontoon…

Moored about a mile above Hurleston Locks

Meg was pleased to be out as well as us. She’s been restricted to her lead while within the marina grounds. We had a ball playing session when we stopped, and later a good romp along the towpath and across the fields.

We’ll stay here for a day or so, no rush to be anywhere.

Locks 0, miles ¾