Continuing the vaguely maritime theme, we went the other day to walk the dogs, and on the way, see the old Tamar barge 'Shamrock' being refloated.  She has been out of the water for ages being refurbished, but she's done at last. . When we got there, they had already got her into the dock, and the tide coming in was floating her.  They pulled her out into the river like this.  




And with considerable effort, got her to here (remember they needed the full tide, and the tide is coming up out of the right of the photo at some speed, so they had to pull her backwards out of the dock against the current.   You forget, always seeing boats manoeuvred with engines, just how much effort it is to move even a medium sized craft like Shamrock just with ropes and arms and the tide. 



Then they had to pull her back in to moor her up in the deep channel.  I was impressed by this guy you can just see behind the   ?tiller using his whole body to pull with and bracing his legs.


The tide was taking its barge-floating duties seriously.  It had brought reinforcements up from the seaside, which overran the quayside in an unruly manner, and left this old winch stranded in the river.  The Shamrock was built in 1899, so presumably that winch has loaded her up with metal from the mines and later, fruit from the orchards.  Now it is mostly having a rest. 


The tide came up through the woods as well, and filled the valley-bottom and the woods with muddy reflections. 


It didnt' make it quite as high up the valley as these orchids though. 


We found a meadow that was not underwater, and raced about. 


That building behind the overexcited lurcher is a National Trust water-mill. It does actually make flour that you can buy, though I must confess I've never tried it.  It's probably very genteel flour.


Back down at the Tamar, the tide was STILL coming in.  Someone had seriously miscalculated how high it was likely to get. 


As we headed home, the Shamrock was now tied up at the quay, ready for action.  The tide was now so full, the Shamrock seemed barely contained by the little dock.



In other news, I finally did a hedge survey today.  I feel I have achieved, though it was not the most exciting of hedges.   I think it had been chosen on the grounds that it was on the borders of a medieval hollow way, but it was quite a knocked-about adapted and revamped hollow way, and as the trees had grown tall around it, there weren't that many interesting things growing on the walls.  Hey ho.