Sunday Cruise: Books and Brownies

As I mentioned in Friday's post, there was to be an eight rowing up an down the river distributing free books as part of World Book Night's Book Giveaway.

James and I decided to go for a cruise and catch up with them to try to get ourselves a copy. We headed to the waterpoint first, to fill and empty the relevant tanks, then out towards Clare boathouse where the book distributors were setting off from. We found them still on the bank, and so we hailed them to ask if they could give us one of the books.

Netting a good read

The crew were using a net to give out the books, so James brough the stern in towards the bank, while I reached out and grabbed it from the net. Success! The book they were giving out was Stuart, a life backwards by Alexander Masters. It is the biography of a Cambridge homeless man, written by an academic who worked at Wintercomfort, a homeless shelter just upriver from where we are moored, on Victoria Avenue. It has had great reviews but I'm only two pages in so far!

Once we'd picked up the book, we decided to continue cruising out of town, but weren't sure where to go. We considered the Plough, but then contacted John on Pippin to see if they would be in this evening. We knew we'd have to cruise back in after coming out there but we have done a lot of night boating in the past so it wasn't a worry if we ended up staying for a bit and not leaving til after dark. I stayed inside for most of the cruise out of town, making brownies (of which more tomorrow). I came out and helped work Baits Bite lock, which was thankfully in our favour, leaving the brownies to cook while I did so. Working the lock took exactly as long as the brownies needed in the oven (20 minutes)!

Out at the Parish, we moored alongside Pippin, meaning that we had to leave as we couldn't stay overnight there. We had a really nice evening. Jackie and I stayed indoors, and soon Rhoda came over with scones so we ate them, as well as my brownies with tea. The boys disappeared into the woodpile to chop wood and do things with bicycles, until they got hungry and joined us for tea and scones. We had tasty pasta carbonara cooked by Jackie for dinner, while watching the brilliant new modern version of Sherlock Holmes (I know its not that new but we'd not seen it before!). At 9:10pm we pushed off and headed for home. I cooked another batch of brownies while we were underway, and James thoroughly enjoyed the cruise. Night boating is great - no rowers to worry about, or lock queues, and it's all very tranquil.