Moroccan catering in Alrewas

15th & 16th March

In expectation of a late night, we made a relaxed, not to say lazy, start to the day yesterday. The major task, such as it was, was to clean the boat; it's an advantage of inviting people for a meal that it encourages us to do more than a quick sweep through of the cabins.

So we turned to and swept, dusted and Dysonned right through, and much better Sanity looks for it.

After lunch it became seriously wet out, the rain having arrived rather earlier than expected in the forecast. I spent a bit of time making chicken tagine and setting up the veg to go with the cous cous.

At seven, we rendezvoused with Will and Jane, who took us by car to try the new pub attached to Barton Turns Marina, the Waterfront. For a completely new structure it's remarkably pleasant, with a decent area in which to sit and drink, as well as a large restaurant. The venture seems very successful, judging by the numbers in there on a wet Saturday in mid March.

Elanor drove across from home and joined us, then we all went back to Sanity for the meal.

For safety's sake, I'd turned the oven off when we went out, but the tagine had continued slow cooking, and it was just a case of popping it onto a ring to come back to the simmer, whilst heating the stir fry veg and water to a boil before adding the cous cous. Wait ten minutes, and there's your meal.

After we had a fresh fruit salad Sheila had knocked up in the afternoon, washing it all down with a couple of bottles of red wine kindly provided by our guests.

Suddenly it was midnight, and Will and Jane tottered off before turning into some variety of small rodent or large orange vegetable. (It was very good wine.)

This morning I must admit to feeling a little dehydrated, but otherwise remarkably fit and well (good food, you see). The only downside was that the Eberspacher timer took the huff again, and refused to turn on. Once we'd got up and dressed in a cool boat, I cured it by the same disconnection strategy as last time, but it's a bit worrying – there's no rhyme or reason for it suddenly misbehaving like this.

High spot of the morning was Sheila looking idly out of a porthole in time to see a sparrowhawk make a strike at something in the towpath hedge just outside. She gave a great shout, but of course, it being a sparrowhawk, it was away before either Elanor or I had a chance to see it.

We spent a good chunk of the day at Elanor's, doing some DIY jobs like replacing the hinges on her kitchen cupboards, the old ones having succumbed to alloy fatigue, in exchange for running a couple of loads of washing. This saves us water, so we can sit on this mooring for another couple of days without worrying about needing to get back to the water point to top up.

By three we were back at the boat for the daily engine run, and a bit of peace and quiet after all this excitement.