Sitting out the storms

9th & 10th March

Despite the foreboding weather forecast, yesterday dawned bright and calm. We spent some time in the morning cutting wood and stacking it on the roof, in anticipation of not being able to do much outside for a few days.

As I came back from the village with the paper, I found Sheila chatting to a couple off Mr Moonlight who had just tied behind us. They'd spent the night tied on the towpath by the Bowling Green, where we had been until we came down to water the day before. They'd had an unpleasant surprise in the morning when they'd discovered that someone had sprayed graffiti over their name panel.

I've never heard of any trouble like that in this village in all the years we've been mooring here. Fortunately, the paint had come off with white spirit: it just shows how wise it is to keep the sides polished, so that anything like that can't get a grip on the layers underneath.

They'd been on their own on the mooring (again unusual for here) so had come down to join us by the lock for safety in numbers.

Later in the morning we were visited by our good friend Jane Howarth, who was walking their two dogs and thought she'd come and see how we were. We had a good natter, catching up on gossip, and will be seeing her again (presumably with Will, if he's not too busy with SOW) on the Tuesday morning walk from the William IV pub.

We had a quiet afternoon – Sheila spent a chunk of time doing stuff on the computer, and I took a walk in the now breezy sunshine up to Fradley, just for the exercise. Fradley was trading well on this early Spring Sunday, with good crowds outside both the BW cafe and the Swan pub.

Overnight the storm duly arrived, getting going in the small hours and rising to a peak at about 6 in the morning. We suffered no real damage – the bay tree in its pot on the roof fell over at some point, and in the morning some kind soul had stood it back upright, though the saucer which was underneath it had long gone.

This morning Sheila went back to the dentist for her root treatment, which went as well as such things can be expected to do, and then we went and found Elanor at home to return her car.

On the way back, we called at the council tip and unloaded more recycling, including the oil from the last oil change, and then went to the Marston's Brewery Shop to stock up before the Chancellor puts the cost of alcohol up on Wednesday.

Then it was round to Morrison's to take advantage of having motor transport by getting in as much in the way of food supplies as we can store on Sanity.

Elanor's dermatitis is improving, but sadly it means that she will have to miss the first week of the WRG camp she'd been planning to go to – at least she'll now have an opportunity to come boating with us for some of the time instead.