Wednesday 18th Sept
It may have been the very good supper last night, but whatever the reason we were rather late getting up this morning, and didn't get under way till 7.45. At ten past eight we went through the Meadow Lane lock and onto the Trent. My back was rather painful this morning. Going through the lock, I was watching Alan flicking the rope off a bollard; I found myself chuckling — and suddenly I got a nasty spasm in the back. Of course, as you often find when you get a sudden pain, I found myself laughing more and more — and at the same time trying to keep myself still to stop my back getting any worse. It's the first time I've put my back out through laughing. I tried to loosen up the muscles later on, but it was only later on, when Nick and Penny brought back a muscle-relaxant spray from a shopping expedition, that I got some relief. In fact it made a tremendous difference.
As we came out of the lock, the team that worked the gates had to board from a floating jetty that was just too far to one side for me to steer the boat to it without going into reverse and doing a lot of manoeuvring. As the river was so wide at that point, and as I'd been itching to do a 'loop the loop' when we were on the Trent yesterday, I did a wide loop around, lined up with the jetty, and picked up the team very easily.
We headed downstream along the Trent, as we had some time to spare and we thought we might as well have a look at the national rowing course, just a mile or so further on. This was just off the river, but Alan managed to see some of it by standing on the boat and using his binoculars. On the way, we could see a rather impressive cloudscape, with the bright morning sun shining through a few holes in the clouds, to give a sort of 'theophany' effect. I took a few photos of this, but realised that (like sunsets) this sort of thing is very difficult to capture in a photo.
There were a few rowers on the river as we went past: a double scull at one point and then some canoeists, who went past two or three times. The canoeists looked very serious, and Alan said there would be a prize if one of them smiled. Just as they were getting out and taking their canoes into the boathouse, there was a flash of teeth from one of them, but we were unable to decide whether that was a smile or a grimace at the momentary effort of lifting the canoe out of the water.
We turned around and went back upstream, going a little way up the Trent beyond the lock, just to see what it was like. We noticed a very splendid looking monument off to our right, in the form of a large gate with columns to either side. It turned out to be a war memorial, but although it looked very impressive, I found myself wondering whether it was entirely the right symbolism: a gate leading nowhere.
At half past nine we came back to Meadow Lane lock and back into the Beeston Cut. Half an hour later we came back to the place where we'd moored last night. There was still plenty of time, so we moored again and went off to look around Nottingham — all going our separate ways. I just went to get some more batteries for my camera and some postcards and stamps, so I got back pretty quickly. By the time the others got back, I'd almost finished writing the cards. At midday we went off to the Vat and Fiddle, a pub next to the Castle Rock brewery. There was a great selection of beers (not to mention whiskies and vodkas) the selection of rolls was quite enough for lunch, and we stayed quite some time. At ten to two we set off again and retraced our path back to the junction of the Trent and Soar. The rest of the afternoon was fairly uneventful, with a little tinge of excitement as Alan and Nick worked out how to use the mechanised lock at Sawley.
Going through the Derwent Mouth lock, we moored at Shardlow. There was a surprising choice of pubs here, considering it was not a particularly large village. We had a pint or two at The Navigation and then went on to an excellent Thai restaurant that had been converted from a pub called The Lady in Grey. We had a really splendid meal here, which gave the fullest range of choice to our vegetarians, Nick and Penny — as well as a fine selection of meat dishes. Back to the boat shortly after nine o'clock, then more or less straight to bed.