Home to Goole

After spending a couple of nights at Torksey we sailed through to Lincoln and, in complete contrast to the quiet countryside, we moored up outside the University halls of residence.  I enjoyed a walk round the city and then climbed the steep streets up towards the cathedral. Near the top of Steep Hill I spotted a Roly's Fudge Shop, an irresistible treat after the long climb.  

Steep Hill leads up to Lincoln Cathedral

After our stop at Lincoln we decided to return to Torksey and complete our journey north on the Trent.  The tide was high, carrying logs and debris towards us, but after the first hour it turned and we started to pick up speed.  

Keadby railway bridge, a humber keel is on the left and a coaster is moored up on the far side of the bridge.

At Keadby the green weed is once again prolific and we kept an eye on Bess and Brinny who might have been tempted to try walking on it.   Cath and John drove down to see us and we enjoyed an evening chatting and catching up on their news.  

Green weed covers the canal at Keadby

We've enjoyed travelling on new waterways but it's also nice to return to familiar ground. We moored up at our usual haunts on our way to Doncaster where Kev wanted to upgrade his phone.  The coverage on his Talkmobile network is non-existent in remote areas so he chose a Samsung phone and swapped to O2.  To retain his phone number we had to ring Talkmobile for a PAC code to give to O2.  Simple, except Talkmobile didn't want to talk to us.  We made 5 calls which followed a similar pattern; after a lengthy wait the call would be answered and we were advised we would be put through to the Terminations Team. Unfortunately the Terminations Team were determined to terminate the call before we could terminate the contract and we were repeatedly cut off.  

Kev's patience gave out and, as we had already sailed out of Doncaster, we turned Brent III round and returned.  The new phone was packed back up and we marched back to Carphone Warehouse where, faced with the prospect of us returning the phone, the assistant put a call through to Talkmobile and had the necessary code within 5 minutes.  Now the new phone is up and running we are very pleased with it. 

The weather forecast indicated a change for the worse and we have some maintenance work to do so we decided to head for winter moorings.  Luckily we didn't have far to go because Viking Marina had space for us.  The wind was getting up as we arrived but that didn't stop us having a drink or two with Cath and John that evening.  

Our cratch board made a convenient shelf for the empties - guess which one was mine!

Since leaving the marina in April we have covered 846 miles and come through 456 locks. 

Map of the waterways we travelled in 2014.