Windbound at Tamworth

21st & 22nd March

Although we'd planned a quick visit to Kingsbury Water Park this weekend, the weather effectively ruled that out. The night before last was very windy, and the storm continued pretty well unabated through the day. 'Wild and woolly' is the note I've made for this blog, and I can't think of a better now.

Our kip was a bit disturbed by it, and by the fact that we had the new, thicker pillows on the bed. It was nothing to do with having entertained Elanor the night before. She actually came over to get me to trim her hair, but first we sat and nattered, and she suddenly said "As you're half way down your second pint, I'll leave the hair cut for another day, I think". Oops.

The rough conditions didn't stop a variety of boats coming past in the course of the day. Some of these seemed to be handling the conditions without a problem, whilst others really struggled. As in other aspects of boating, you couldn't sort the displayed skill by type of ownership, or smartness or otherwise.

Similarly, some felt it necessary to go by far faster than usual for passing a moored boat, whilst others slid by at a slow tick over. We are tied just before a bend, and the shift of wind pressure involved caught some out.

There was one quite new boat, complete with all modern aids such as a bow thruster, but also fitted, to its undoing, with a pram canopy over the steering position. Why the guy persisted in keeping it up is a mystery to me – it was taking the wind and hugely complicating his task, such that as he came up to our mooring, the bow fell away into the offside bushes. With much whining of the bow thruster and revving of the engine, he tried to back out, but no sooner had he pulled clear than another gust blew him back in.

He ended up travelling in reverse back round the corner, when the different angle of the boat to the wind at last enabled him to regain the channel and come charging past us.

In the other direction, an old GRP cruiser came by with a wrinkly blue sheet of polythene tied across it, like a head scarf over curlers in the early days of Coronation Street. One corner of this sartorial eccentricity had come free, and was blowing out sideways like an unsheeted sail, but the steerer seemed quite unfazed by it, and went off down the cut as if boating in a flat calm.

Our own exertions were confined to going over to the retail park for yet more shopping, to the point where it would be hard to get much more into the cupboards (though it's amazing how, no matter how thorough you are, as soon as you start preparing a meal, you use up one ingredient or another and the shopping list begins growing again).

In the afternoon we did a bit more wood cutting, but the bow saw blade (which, it will be recalled, we had intended to replace at the now defunct branch of Focus Do It All) was finally too blunt to do any more, so we will have to be content with what we have cut now until we can replace it.

Today was a grey, miserable sort of a morning. We took the old pillows to the recycling bank in the car park of the retail park, and bought milk and a paper at Sainsbury's on the way back, but apart from that we've sat tight, watching the weather, and yet more hardy souls making the most of their holiday by boating in tough conditions. The forecast was for snow flurries, but at times it was 'sno flurry, they were proper showers (sorry).

It is one of those situations where it's hard not to feel a smugness about our situation amounting to a temptation to Nemesis; all we need to do is sit tight and wait for the weather to improve. Whenever it comes, we'll be boating.

In fact, we will need to move tomorrow, since we want to get back to Whittington by tomorrow night, as we've invited Des and Gill Barnard for a meal on board. Meantime, we've occupied ourselves with tidying cupboards (partly as a result of all these supplies we've bought), surfing the net (good connection here) and reading. Oh, and giving Sheila a hair cut.