Boating and cleaning and loafing and stuff

Saturday 14 April

Concerned that we might have a problem getting a mooring at Fradley on a Saturday if we arrived too late in the day, we made a flying start in the morning. This involves getting up at 7 and Sheila dressing and starting boating while I get breakfast. Accordingly, we were on our way at 7.10 in a thick mist. As soon as I'd had breakfast we changed over and plodded on through the mirk. It made for some magical boating.

We stopped on the waterpoint outside Fazeley Mill Marina. We'd not used this one before, and it proved to have very good pressure. By ten past nine we were back on the shopping mooring for a quick expedition to Sainsbury's. 45 minutes later we were on our way again, with a lot of other boats around.

We got to Fradley just before lunchtime, and found one slot on the Coventry Canal moorings, just behind Prairie Crocus. There were, in fact, a couple of moorings round the junction by the Info Office as well, but all did indeed fill up over the next couple of hours.

There followed a very pleasant afternoon, sitting in the sun part of the time and polishing brass the rest. We even made a start on the Houdini hatch, which looks lovely when it's polished, but is a swine to do, consisting as it does of a lot of slim bars and edges. We keep meaning to get it to the point where we could cover it with Incralac varnish, but we've never managed it yet.

Prairie Crocus, meanwhile, was using a grinder to strip the paint off his well deck prior to repainting it, which was, perhaps, a bit antisocial on a Saturday afternoon in a tourist spot.

We were just within two hose lengths of the waterpoint, so Sheila ran a washload and then refilled the tank.

Sunday 15 April

A prompt rather than early start today, as we wanted to arrive at Alrewas after the overnight moorers had set off. We got underway at 8.15, again in lots of mist, enough, in fact, that I put the tunnel light and navigation lights on. Sheila, who was lockwheeling, said this made it much easier to spot where I was.

We got to Alrewas at 10.15, having passed lots of boats coming the other way, and were able to moor in our usual spot outside the bowling green.

There followed another afternoon much like yesterday, sitting on the towpath watching the traffic, of which there was a lot, and cleaning the other side of the boat. The towpath was now on the starboard side, rather than the port side we've been seeing for a few days. As a result, some hard work was put into bringing that brass up to the mark. It's amazing how dark it goes in a few days, even without any rain. Speaking of which, the weather continues quite ridiculously fine, which must be becoming a real worry to the farmers - the crops are looking quite drought stressed already.

Monday 16 April

Today was the final medical bit, visiting the GP to get the results of the blood tests of a fortnight ago, and discussing tweaks to my meds. All was well, so I felt pretty cheerful going back to the boat. So cheerful, in fact, that I decided to clean the Squirrel stove flue, which I'd noticed was beginning to look rather caked in soot and scale. In fact it was looking inside just the way I'm trying not to get my coronary arteries.

This is an interesting task, as we don't have a flue brush. The traditional boater's solution, I understand, is to get a bit of gorse bush, drop a rope down the chimney and tie it to the bush, then pull it back up, cleaning the soot off on the way. Unfortunately, Alrewas is far too well groomed to have bits of gorse bush growing around, so another strategy had to be found.

Scraping the boat hook up and down inside got rid of a lot of big lumps, but it wasn't doing a thorough job. In the end, I had the idea of tying an old, slim rope fender to the end of the boat hook, and using that, which worked very well. Meanwhile, Sheila took the fire door outside and cleaned it with the scrubbing brush, and I finished off by using some cleaning foam on the glass.

After using a dustpan and brush on the rest, the whole stove now looked very clean, and could be reassembled. It seems to be coping with the way we use it very well - there's a bit of a crack in one of the fire bricks, but the grate is not showing any sign of burning through, so the combination of scavenged wood and Pureheat solid fuel must suit it.

Elanor came for dinner, bearing with her a crucial bit of post, our complimentary EA licence for the East Anglian rivers for this summer. As one of the boats which will spend a total of three weeks at the site of this year's IWA Festival at St Ives, we've qualified for a free six month's licence, which is good of them.

Tuesday 17 April

There's now nothing keeping us here in Alrewas, except that it's Tuesday, and therefore we can join the Willie Walkers for their morning walk and then lunch in the pub. Before doing so, I rang the Denver Control Centre, to find out how soon we can book our crossing from the Middle Level to the Great Ouse, and back again.

Spoke to a very helpful chap (they always are), who said that the booking system would be available from the beginning of May. The problem is that there is this one bit of tidal crossing we will all need to do, from the Middle Level system onto the tidal Great Ouse and then through Denver Sluice. You normally just give the lock-keepers concerned 48 hours notice, but the Festival will mean a lot more boats wanting to do it, hence the prudence of a more systematic booking system.

Then we went for a good walk, about six miles over two hours, getting back to the pub at one o'clock, just in nice time for a pint (or two) and a pub lunch. One of the attractions of this arrangement is that the pub, the William IV, does a two for one deal on its basic menu at lunchtime.

What with the walk and everything, not much got done in the afternoon, but hey, it can't be all work in this life.

Tomorrow, all the way up Fradley as we set off for Stone and our dry dock appointment.