Bath & Online again

Wow!! I have a computer again. I cannot believe how unlucky I have been this year with computers. I had just about installed all my programs on my brand new HP laptop, which was no mean feat both in terms of time and the vagaries of Microsoft Vista, when it died on me after 9 days use. PC World were very good and after the chap in the "Tech Guys" section had pronounced it "Dead on Arrival" I was free to choose a new one under the 28 day rule. This time I have a DELL and I am hoping for third time lucky. I briefly flirted with the idea of an Apple Mac but it couldn't fulfil my criteria at anywhere near the price of a PC. I have almost installed all my programs again.

My last entry was Devizes on Friday 13th (good job I am not superstitious). Emma arrived that evening, together with Parga of course. We had planned a 9am departure for the 29 locks and had arranged to go in company with Richard and crew on Andante. They had extra crew coming as did we. Geoff and Gill Smith had called to say they were free this weekend so the timing was great. They arrived in good time and Geoff parked their car at the bottom of the middle 16 and cycled back up to meet us. We had an excellent trip down in good company and managed to complete the 29 in just under 4 hours. The setting is lovely and there were quite a few sightseers waiting for us to do something wrong. Apart from my entry into the first lock being a tad too fast we had no mishaps, but going into the middle 16 most of the time side by side required quite a lot of concentration, and even then I am sure we added to the scratches on the side (it's a contact sport" I hear Geoff cry!!)
Once at the bottom we carried on to Sells Green to moor. We had been very lucky with the weather and the sun was still shining. Gill S and Emma hitched a ride with some of Andante's crew to collect their cars. After lunch on board we had a lazy afternoon and had supper at the nearby Three Magpies pub...good food at a reasonable price. I took Parga for a longish walk along the canal to tire him out. Although he had walked the locks he had been on the lead most of the way to conform with the regulations so he was somewhat frustrated. Inevitably he found somewhere to get into the canal and had his swim. He seems to be very partial to being rubbed down afterwards! Gill & Geoff departed after supper. All in all it had been a very pleasant day.

Sunday morning Geoff & I went to church in Seend. It was about a 15 min walk uphill. We had the time of 1015 in the Boaters Christian Fellowship hand-out but it turned out to be 1115. So we bought the papers and went the long way round back to the boat to give Parga a good walk and then borrowed Emma's car for the trip up the hill again. It was a good service with a fair size congregation with an excellent organist. The lady rector turned out to be from Cornwall, what a small world...

Monday saw us departing towards Bradford upon Avon. We planned to moor somewhere out in the country or maybe Hilperton but we found no suitable places so ended up in Bradford upon Avon itself. We moored near the top of the lock in a very pretty setting.

On the Tuesday we set off for Bathampton. It was only a few miles and an extremely pretty run but oh so slow!! It is almost a continuous line of boats between Bradford and Bathampton. We met very few moving boats and one wonders where all the people are who own all these boats. Some are on no limit spots and some on permanent moorings, but some of those on 48hour mooring did not look as if they went anywhere very often. There were some nice looking boats and some extremely tatty ones.

We managed to find a space at Bathampton just behind the cafe boat. As soon as we were moored I took up my computer and had two bus rides to PC World which is out of the other side of Bath. I returned later having left the new computer with them to install some software in order to do the updates with a good connection.

I then had almost two computerless days...such freedom.......

On Wednesday we both took the bus into town, first use for Geoff's bus pass....

Unfortunately it was a rather rainy start to the day but we managed to have a pleasant wander round the town and found a Turkish Restaurant (Cafe Marmaris) offering a 3 course lunch for £5.99. It was difficult to resist so we didn't! It proved to be excellent value and saved me cooking so much in the evening.

Thursday we moved on to Bath with the possible intention of continuing to Bristol. The weather was glorious again so when we reached the first set of moorings above the town we were seduced into staying. A phone call to PC World ascertained that the new machine was ready so I walked into town (went wrong so had a much longer walk than necessary!) and then caught the bus out the other side and collected it. I made a small detour to McDonalds as I had done on the Tuesday. PC World is on a small trading estate which only appears to have themselves and Curry side by side and a McDonalds.

Back at Petroc I tried to ignore the computer as I was expecting all sorts of problems when I tried to install programs again. Geoff took himself off for a wander around Bath. Eventually I gave in and started on the laborious task of bringing computer Mark3 up to date. Luckily I had all my data backed up, something I am now more fanatical than ever about doing.

Today (Friday 20th June) saw us going into town for a further wander and sight-see. The forecast rain did not arrive so it was quite enjoyable. We took in a load of books we had finished with as there was a place in the market who would buy them. We nearly got back what we had paid for the extra ones we had bought on the Wednesday!