After a walk around Upware, a cruise from The Five Mile pub to the Twenty Pence inn via Ely as the Russians shoot down a Jumbo Jet

After the warm evening, it was a mild night with temperatures above 53degF. Today, although The Lady’s cockpit temperature reach a maximum 80degF, I am sure outside temperatures did not rise above 70degF. The barometer down further but restored to 1011 tonight. This morning at the ‘Five Mile’ pub moorings, I took a walk around the few houses and lock at Upware. The lock-keeper was clearing weed from the gates at 8.45am and a local smallholder hard at work with a wheeled hoe clearing weeds from salad vegetable seedlings.

We set off for Ely and moor above the first railway bridge on the GOBA moorings. The whole of ‘riverside’ was full of cruisers and it is good to see the river so busy. A morning’s walk to the Ely market but on the way we enter the Cathedral by the east wing and take a good time looking around its magnificence. In the market I buy a book by Arthur Bryant on Samuel Pepys, ‘The Years of Peril’. Back to The Lady via Ely yacht chandlers with Daniel but nothing interesting to buy either there or at Babylon Marina.

A restful afternoon’s reading whilst Diana took the children to the playground then we cast off and cruise to ‘Twenty Pence Inn’ on the Old West River. There Daniel makes another girl friend briefly at the swings before the children are put to bed and we eat at the Inn. A good meal and a shared bottle of Liebfraumilch before we repair to the boat for the television news and last episode of ‘David Lloyd George.’

News today is of a Jumbo Jet plane shot down by the Russians with its appalling implications to be absorbed by all. England’s victory 3 wins the first of the seven semi-final contests against the rival Australia entry in the Americas Cup race. The Lebanon is still a prime problem.