Lazing for a day, then on to Newbold

8th & 9th April

After the exertions of the previous two days, it was pleasant to make a very lazy start yesterday. It had been another cold night the night before, so we loafed in bed listening to the Eberspacher doing its best for some time.

After breakfast we walked into Brinklow in search of a loaf of bread and a paper. The shop there is a Post Office and newsagents, with a some very basic groceries. We got an Independent all right, but the bread choice was confined to thick sliced white or medium sliced ditto. It's for this eventuality that I've taken to keeping a couple of bake your own bread kits in the cupboard, and when we got back to Sanity I set to and made one up. I made it into four demi baguette type things, and they were just out of the oven for ten minutes or so when it was time for lunch.

Must say, the granary bread, still warm and stuffed with cold meat and caramelized onion hummus, or red Leicester cheese and beetroot chutney, were delicious. It meant that we ate the lot, the equivalent of a two pound loaf between us, so the afternoon was quite peaceful, with not a lot of activity.

I did finally get round to cleaning the bathroom, but the rest of the time was spent reading and surfing the internet at a very slow speed in view of the GPRS connection.

Today we made a more prompt start, with the idea of getting diesel and perhaps a pump out at Terry Yates's yard just before Newbold tunnel. It was another bright, frosty morning, great for boating. As we passed the moored boats by All Oaks Wood, one of the boaters complained to us that it was a fine morning for February. There's no pleasing some folk, and anyway, what's unusual about a frosty morning in April?

We got to Yates's just at 9.30, but it was closed – either he was feeling lazy, or he's stopped doing diesel, or he's out of stock at the moment. The main worry is less the fuel than the state of the toilet tank, but we should be OK until Friday when we can get a pump out at Clifton Cruisers.

Newbold Tunnel was its colourful self – it's pleasing to see that, having spent all that money on fancy lighting, they are at least maintaining it. We filled the water tank and started a washload, then went round to tie on some very empty moorings. Newbold's another of those places where either the moorings are chocker, or deserted. It never feels too lonely, because of the long term moorings beyond the visitor ones. Presumably BW have chased the winter moorers away, and the holiday traffic is not yet brisk enough to fill the spaces.

After lunch I put some snow photos up on the website, then we went for a walk around the nature park they've made out of the local quarry. It still feels very raw, and it will be a few years before it's at its best, but the locals seem to appreciate it as a place for dog walks and the like.

We saw a couple of pair of grebe, and four male tufties pursuing one female, in addition to the usual coots, mallard and swans.

I'm going off to the Inaugural SOW meeting tomorrow, lift courtesy of Richard Carpenter (thanks Richard) then on Friday we'll head off for Hillmorton via Clifton Cruisers.