Duck pancake

Friday 23rd May

We came aboard as the day’s intermittent, but heavy, rain petered out. Once everything was stowed we set off North towards Thrupp in order to turn Jannock round again. This time we hoped to fill with water and empty the loo tank whilst we were there.

At Thrupp, Brenda opened the bridge and I took Jannock through and started the tight turn to get onto the wharf. It was whilst winding that we caught the attention of ‘Bad Mother Duck of the Year’. She is obviously used to being fed from the boats at Thrupp boat club and so she rushed across to Jannock’s stern bringing her brood of seven tiny ducklings with her. They came so close that I had to take the engine out of reverse so that they didn’t all get sucked into the propeller. We tried shooing them all away but they kept coming back. As we were approaching the wharf wall she took them down the side of the boat so we had to shoo them all out again. In the short time it took me to get back to the centre rope that I’d left on the wharf, after shooing them all out, she’d obviously taken them back again as the meeting of boat and wharf wall had a disastrous affect and only four of her ducklings survived not being crushed. I felt bad and even had to apologise to the gentleman on the Thrupp boat club welcome boat when I purchased a pump-out card from him. Water tank full and loo tank empty we then passed back through the bridge and moored for the night outside the pretty cottages. Many times we’ve wanted to moor here, for the pub, and it’s been full. Today – was we bovvered? Well, we got a space.