The June Rose: Monday 27 July 2015

Bright sunny morning but a bit windy. We go for a walk in search of the shop which is in a village called Seend. Seend is described on some plaques as “Best kept large village”. The properties here are impressive – large and mostly very pretty, I can’t believe that everybody that lives here copes with just a small general store, but then they probably all have cars!

Armed with a loaf of fresh bread, some farm sausages and a packet of strepsils we make our way back to the boat and set off. We are heading for Semington Boat yard as they are going to clean our diesel tank in preparation for our channel excursion - apparently you have to have the invoice to prove that you have had it done before they will let you go out.

Through two swing bridges and we can see a boat in front of us so we pair up with them to go through the next five locks which are all very close together. Their boat is called Iothanthe which we saw moored in Devizes last week. Roz and Steve – they have lived on their boat for seven years now and have no intention of giving up this life anytime soon (and Steve is 71!). So many Steve's!

We moor up to have some lunch at 1.00pm as we haven’t even had breakfast yet! No doubt we will bump into them again further down the canal over the next few days.

Three more swing bridges, an aqueduct and another lock and we are there. We have moored up opposite the boatyard and have been to have a chat – they will fit us in at 8.00am tomorrow morning.

I think we need to have a word with someone about this weather – it is nearly the end of July and feels like Autumn!