Heading South

Saturday 5 May

First a couple of things I missed out last time. On our way from Stone to the overnight mooring at Wolseley, we saw our first cygnets of the year - in fact, it was even better than that - the pen was still on the nest, with two cygnets beside her, and some eggs still visible underneath her, so they must just have been hatching.

The other thing is for the techies - I took the opportunity while able to get at all of Sanity's hull to check her measurements, including the draught - even after blacking, you can tell where the waterline is by the change in the surface. This enables you to work out the volume of water displaced, and hence, courtesy of that nice Mr Archimedes, the weight of the boat. Our boat manual gives a displacement of 16.5 tonnes, but my calculations come out at 17.1 tonnes. This explains why, if you get the approach speed wrong when mooring, you end up doing the towpath canter, swinging on the centreline, and plaintively uttering the boater's cry "Stop, you cow!"

Back to today: after an exceptionally good night's sleep, we were up and off by 8.15. An hour later found us mooring at Rugeley to do some shopping, including buying a new padlock for the fuel filler security device, the one supplied having seized up, fortunately while it was undone, or we'd have been in a pretty pickle next time we needed to fill up.

We then had a very pleasant boat to the top 0f Woodend lock, though the passage through the narrow sections around Armitage were made exciting by the numbers of boats coming the other way.

After lunch and some phone calls from Elanor (she's down with Stuart in Sussex, pondering her options for buying a new car) we polished brass, and I caught up with the blog.

All was calm and peaceful, with the occasional boat working through the lock as the afternoon faded into the evening. This was interrupted by another sight we'd not seen before on the cut. A plastic cruiser, Carpe Diem, worked up the lock and stopped just in front of us, on the end of the lock mooring. I thought at first, looking out through the bow window, that they were planning to moor for the night, but no. Leaving his female crew holding the mooring lines, and standing by his boat facing us, the gent concerned unzipped the fly of his shorts and relieved himself into the grass by the mooring bollard.

Then he zipped up, they got back on the boat and went off again. If I'd thought a bit faster, I should have asked "What was wrong with the hedge?" but there you go.

Checking email in the evening, we hear that John and Nev continue to have some problems with Waimaru, their new boat. Apparently the shoreline connection doesn't work, and John feels that the fore and aft trim is wrong, with the bow too high and the stern too deep. We just hope that they can get it all sorted out in good time - she's the Ben Harp show boat at Crick at the end of this month.

Sunday 6 May

It actually rained a bit overnight, though not enough to mark the brass, so can't have been much. We made an 8.30 start, planning to lock down to the visitor moorings at Fradley, so we wanted to be there at about 10 or 10.30, after the overnighters had moved off, but before the lunchtime boats had arrived.

Sheila went ahead on the bike, and it proved to be an easy run, so that we actually got there earlier than intended, locking down through some Spring showers, but all was well, and we had no problem finding a mooring space at 9.30.

I then took over the bike and rode into Alrewas down the towpath in order to buy a paper.

I got back by 11, and the next challenge was to fill in time before lunch at 12.

Not long after lunch, Graham and Beryl Johnson on Priscilla, Braidbar 46, turned up, on their way back to their mooring in Barton Turns marina. They were able to tie near us and came in for a cup of tea and chat until 4.

The day ended with a veggie pasta, and we were seized with the munchies last thing, so I made some toast despite the time this takes on the grill.