Catching up again

Sunday 1 April

Having made a resolution to keep up to date with this blog, things promptly conspired against me. I wrote the blog for Friday and Saturday in good time on Sunday morning, and then discovered that the GPRS connection in Alrewas was so slow I couldn't get it published via Blogger. It seems the Orange signal round here, though strong enough for adequate voice calls, doesn't have enough capacity to deal with substantial amounts of data. Email is OK, and basic use of the Web where the site is reasonably fast, but anything large, or involving secure connections, just takes so long that the connection times out.

After trying day after day, finally managed to post it on Tuesday.

Apart from this frustration, things were pretty good. The weather continued fine, so we were able to do our weekly boat clean without much difficulty. Elanor dropped in late afternoon, after taking Stuart to catch his train, and we had a relaxed evening.

Monday 2 April

The main theme for today was dentistry. We use a very helpful dental practice in Alrewas, who seem to cope with our lifestyle. We had appointments for check up and scale and polish for both of us first thing in the morning. Because I was getting some discomfort in the upper left, we'd also booked a treatment appointment for later in the morning. This avoids the situation where something turns up in the check up, but then it's necessary to wait a month or so for the treatment appointment, thereby mucking up carefully laid cruising plans.

There was indeed a moved filling in my upper left 7, so back I went and had it drilled out and replaced.

The afternoon was pretty quiet again - we moved onto the waterpoint to top up, and then went on to a mooring further into the village. Elanor looked in on her way back from work, but didn't stop for a meal.

The mooring we were using is very nice - it's by the Alrewas Bowls Club, and opposite a tastefully done residential conversion and extension of old canal-side buildings. The only problem with it became apparent during the night. It's not often realised, but when it comes to dedicated fornication, ducks lead rabbits by a short beak, with the rest of the animal kingdom nowhere. This is all the more apparent because, where rabbits seem to just get on with it, there's an awful lot of foreplay in duck sex, and this mooring proved to be the ducky equivalent of Club Med.

At four in the morning, one duck started quacking and kept it up for a solid half hour. This was followed by a lot of duck flirtation, which is a sort of kiss-chase in which the duck flies around, alighting from time to time on sundry high spots, and the drakes have to keep up as best they can. Hence, at six, there was the unmistakable noise of one or more ducks landing on the roof of the boat, and then stomping around on it, quacking.

The final straw came when the duck sat on the Houdini hatch over the bed - I contemplated banging the underside to make it get off, but desisted because of the risk that it would make a deposit in its fright. Needless to say, it promptly dumped anyway.

Tuesday 3 April

After the nocturnal alarms, we were a bit dozy in the morning, but when we finally emerged, it was to find that the roof bore the marks of the ducky revelry. It's better than fag ends and beer cans, I guess, but there were footprints and duck poo all over the place.

I had an appointment for diabetic review at 11, so couldn't take part in the weekly walk, which sets off at 10.45, more or less. Sheila, however, was keen to go, so I saw her off and then walked round to the surgery for my meeting with the excellent diabetic nurse.

All was well, and I toddled back to the boat to wait for Sheila. In fact the entire walk came by just on one o'clock, so I popped my boots on and went with them to the pub for lunch. This didn't finish until about 3 (Gad, this life is hell, but someone has to do it!), when we ambled back to the boat to drink tea and recover.

Had another visit from Elanor, who sighed and looked disapproving at our state, then left us to eat sandwiches instead of dinner, we having had a cooked meal at lunchtime.

Wednesday 4 April

Just for a change, we made an early start, as we wanted to do the short run up to Fradley Junction to get a pump out and diesel. Sheila had noted yesterday, when walking through Fradley, that there were now a lot of boats on the move, so we thought to get our own moving done early while it was quiet.

Accordingly, we were on our way at 8, and at Fradley just after 9. The pump out was no problem, but Geoff and Dave at Swan Line have still not sorted their fuel supply out. This has been going on for many months, and is to do with the fact that the service point is on the opposite side of the cut to the road access.

Suppliers used to be happy to run a hose across the water, holding up the boats meanwhile, but our health and safety culture means they won't do this any more. The chosen solution is to put a tank and pump on the flat they use to hold the pump out water, which can be pushed across to the other side to be filled with diesel and emptied of sludge. They've got the tank in, but haven't yet connected it up, so still no diesel. And this with Easter next weekend.

Pump out achieved, Sheila gave a master class, for anyone watching, reversing the boat into the junction and turning it so that we could drop down Junction lock and moor on the visitor moorings below for the afternoon. The weather just went on getting better and better, so we had a stroll round the nature reserve they've made of the small reservoir, trying out Sheila's new binoculars and my camera, especially on what looked like a terrapin sitting on a piece of wood in the middle of the lake.

The boat tied two behind us had signs up saying "Cheese Boat", and indeed he was selling some excellent Snowdonia Cheese. We bought two at £2.99 for 200 grams - one with garlic and herbs, and one with whisky added.

Chicken and bacon risotto for dinner, and a peaceful night, free of randy ducks. Back to Alrewas tomorrow, where hopefully I'll get to borrow Will Chapman's broadband access and can post this.