Last time in Alrewas for a bit

Monday 7 May

Sheila was concerned that we should get to Alrewas at the right time to get a mooring in the village, so with this in mind we made a prompt start and I backed Sanity across onto the water point at 8. This water point is not fast, and it took a good half hour to fill the tank.

Then off we went, with Sheila on the bike and me steering down the locks. In the longer pound from Common Lock to Bagnall, Sheila was able to get so far ahead that she was able to go on down into Alrewas and discover that, although we were early (the optimum is between 10 and 11, and this was barely past 9.30), there were plenty of spaces on the towpath to moor.

We worked down Bagnall Lock, and Sheila went off ahead again. She stopped to signal that first one, then two boats were approaching the blind, tree hung bend that makes Alrewas such an interesting place to boat through. In fact this turned out to be a pair, with names not visible, so I was very glad to be forewarned and able to hang back before the bend. We were tidily moored by 10 and settling down to a cup of coffee and the paper by 10.30.

After lunch we gave the boat its clean through inside for the week - normally this gets done on Sundays, but chatting to the Priscillas had put the kibosh on that yesterday. In this context, it's very noticeable what an active social life we have on the cut - in the past few weeks, we seem to have been meeting people we know at least every other day, and often making new friends in the interim. Before we moved on board, there were the work relationships, of course, but we were often too tired or stressed out to do much socialising in the evenings or weekends.

I spent some time in the late afternoon browsing other boaters' blogs - there's a good few out there, the most detailed and informative about waterways issues in general being grannybuttons, but they all have their interest and amusing aspects.

It was cool enough in the evening to justify lighting the fire, though as often at this time of year the problem was to keep the thing small enough - we ended up sitting in the boat in t-shirts with the bow doors open, it having got so warm on just one piece of wood and a few lumps of coal.

Tuesday 8 May

As I've said earlier, our main reason for coming back into Alrewas was to take part in the Tuesday morning Willie Walk, which we duly did today. First, since we weren't in any rush to get up, we woke early. We did a trip to the shops got a paper and things, and Sheila was able to get a hair appointment for the end of this afternoon, so we will be able to set off on our travels again tomorrow morning, instead of hanging about here for another day.

There was a lot of email exchange on the canals list about BW's new proposal to deal with the lack of moorings for all these new boats that are still being built. Their latest idea is to suspend the current waiting lists and instead offer mooring contracts for vacant moorings on the basis of a tendering process. BW insists that this isn't an auction, but some of us are struggling with the difference between a closed tendering process and a sealed bid auction.

The effect will be to ensure that BW gets the best price possible for the mooring, of course, but at the cost of making it very difficult for those on limited incomes to afford one at all. As continuous cruisers, it doesn't affect us directly, but we still have concerns about the way in which the steadily rising cost of boating is making it a preserve for the well heeled in shiny boats, rather than the rich mix of all kinds and conditions that we know and love.

After a great walk, we had our usual pub lunch with Jane Howarth, Will Chapman not being around today as he's off boating to Birmingham in Quidditch.

The afternoon (remains of) was spent quietly on the boat and net. Sheila went off and got her hair cut, getting back just before Elanor called in with our post. We gave her a load of our books to take away, and a list of the ones we'd like back from her when she comes for dinner tomorrow.