Some days, all your plans gang agley

24th & 25th February

Sunday was a day of two halves, with a relaxed start and a dramatic afternoon. We'd planned on the relaxed bit for the whole day – Elanor had stayed overnight, we'd had a good night the night before, and so we lay in a bit in the morning.

Things started to unravel around 11 o'clock, when the toilet tank suddenly announced it was full. The Tankwatch gauge has four lights – green for empty, yellow: starting to fill, amber: half full and red: it's running out into the cut. The amber light hadn't come on but the red one did – clearly the sensor for the amber had stuck, always a bit of a problem with toilet tank gauges.

Fortunately Elanor was pretty well ready to leave, so we saw her off, and shot into the village to get fresh supplies, with the aim of an early lunch and an afternoon trip to Wheaton Aston, rather than leaving that until today.

This plan started well, and we were underway by 12.30. As we approached Cookley Tunnel, which is the exit from Gnosall, we saw some activity by the cliff face on the offside that precedes the tunnel mouth. Some kids were climbing around on it and shouting, and a woman was standing on the towpath shouting back.

It turned out that an 11 year old lad had fallen or jumped off the top of the 15 foot high cliff, and was now lying in a heap at the bottom, moaning. Sheila was steering, and put Sanity's bow onto the offside so that I could get off and see if he was hurt.

Even the most cursory exam showed that although he was conscious and breathing easily, his legs were injured, so I called across to the woman on the towpath to dial 999. Then it was a matter of keeping him covered with a blanket off the boat until the first paramedic got there about 15 minutes later.

Access for the emergency team was at the bridge back at the moorings, along the towpath and then across Sanity, using her as a pontoon bridge. After half an hour or so we had a good collection of ambulance crew, paramedics and police, and a helicopter had been summoned.

When the casualty had been duly stabilized on a spinal board with neck collar and all, they loaded him onto Sanity's bow and we pushed across to the other side so that he could be carried to the chopper to be taken off to N Staffs Infirmary, the nearest major trauma unit. It seemed possible that he'd managed to break both femurs and perhaps a knee cap.

It just shows how much damage you can do falling off a comparatively small height.

It was gone 2 o'clock before we were on our way again, and we got to Wheaton Aston at around four. Here we discovered, as we'd hoped, that the facility is suitable for self pump out, and we took about an hour pumping, rocking and not ooching* but flushing with a good high pressure spray.

Despite all this the green light didn't come on, but we'd clearly got as much out as we were likely to. I reversed Sanity back through the bridge to a visitor mooring handy for the landing for the garage on the road above, which has always sold some of the cheapest red diesel on the system – 57.5 p per litre at the moment.

Today we decided to stay put and sort ourselves out after yesterday's excitement. We've invited my nephew Michael over from Germany to stay a few days with us in May, paying for his air fare as an 18th birthday present, and I wanted to use the Moneygram facility at the Post Office to send him the cash.

This proved to be easy to arrange, so back at the boat I emailed him the magic number and the URL of Moneygram's website so he could find a bank at which to claim his dosh.

Then we swept and washed the floor before lunch, so as to be able to stand the mattress on it without getting it muddy. After lunch we took all the soft furnishings off the bed, and Sheila retreated to the saloon whilst I removed enough of the bed base slats to access the top of the sender for the Tankwatch gauge.

Removing it demonstrated that a mixture of sludge and toilet scale was stopping the sensors from moving easily, thus explaining the erratic performance of the gauge. After cleaning it up (what a world of horror can be contained in a few short words), I reassembled it and satisfied myself that things are now working properly again.

After washing ny hands several times, and putting the bed back together, we planned to have an early cup of tea. Checking email produced one from Michael – there are no Moneygram agents in either Osnabruck, his local town, or Munster, where the airport is.

Back the PO I went, where the guy assured me that he'd never come across that phenomenon before. Anyway, because it was the same working day, I got all the cash back, including the (not small) fee. I'll just have to send him the money via my bank, which is more longwinded, but they can send him a check direct to his house.

Meanwhile, my main email address is out of action today – major server failure at Vispa, my ISP. Vispa is cheap, but we do have difficulties like this from time to time.

The good news is that the stoppage at Wheaton Aston lock has come off early, so tomorrow we can head off to Brewood, and subsequently down the Staffs and Worcs to Kinver where Wilson's will restitch a zip in the cratch cover.

*yacht racing joke for Peter Mason.