A Peeping Tom at Polesworth

Friday 11 May

After a very wet night I made a quick and early trip to Sainsbury's and we boated round to the Fazeley water point by the BW office. There were distinct sounds of movement, so there is someone still alive in there - they are just not very good at answering emails (I still haven't had a substantive response to my complaint in March).

We started the washing machine, as usual, with the aim of finishing the heat cycle by the time we'd filled the tank, but the water pressure was too good, and we had to set off with the machine switched off. While it's heating the water, we need the engine to be doing 1000 rpm or better, and tick over, necessary for passing moored boats and the like, is only 850. By 9.30 we were on our way, going straight on at the junction to head for the Glascote 2. This is the first time we've been on this route since the autumn, so it's good to have the change of scene.

By 11.50 we were at Polesworth, which is a nice village with good moorings - we've stayed there lots of times without trouble (cue for later excitement)

After lunch we cleaned the port side of the boat, and I tightened the screws that hold the galley prism together, which seems to have cured the leak. I took some recycling to the bins in the car park and we settled down for a quiet evening.

Just as we were going to bed, in fact I was cleaning my teeth and Sheila was about to put her nightie on, she looked up to see a face peering at her through the Houdini hatch over the bed. She shouted and banged the hatch, and the face disappeared. I shot through to the bow door, but by the time I'd got it open, and it being dark, there was nothing to see, just the sound of running footsteps disappearing into the night.

In these circs, the most troublesome thing is how long it takes to calm down again. Sheila was, of course, both shocked and angry, whilst I was just furious. Sheila managed to get to sleep remarkably quickly, but it was gone 2 in the morning before I dropped off. My mind was full of revenge fantasies - it's a good job I didn't have a chance to catch him.

Saturday 12 May

We woke in rather a bleary state. There isn't a police presence in Polesworth, but we thought we should still report our peeping tom, since although there's no chance of catching him, it's good for the police and BW to have an idea of whether there's a problem in a particular place.

Accordingly, we used a useful bit of Graham Keens' website that lists all the non-emergency numbers of the police forces. Sheila gritted her teeth to ring up, and was glad she did. She had a very helpful conversation with a copper who said he'd pass it on to their intelligence section to collate with other, similar reports. We noticed that the Info board by the moorings had had the words "Watch out for thieves" added, so perhaps care needs to be taken when mooring in Polesworth at the moment.

After all this and a quick trip into the village for supplies, we boated to the foot of Atherstone Locks. We had planned to go up two locks to a quiet bit of mooring between 10 and 9, but since it was getting windy, we decided to stop on the moorings just below the bottom lock.

After lunch, I did an oil and filter change, while Sheila spent some time on the web, researching possibilities for this tax year's ISA investment. I also logged our incident on the NABO site, from where it will be passed to BW.

I made a beef tikka masala for dinner, and we had an early night.