Yesterday started remarkably bright, considering the forecast, but later became remarkably wet. We made a leisurely start, and even before we'd breakfasted became aware of numbers of fishermen walking past carrying the impedimenta of their sport.
It was apparent that a fishing match was about to take place, and we were soon surrounded by doleful individuals arranging themselves at regular intervals along the towpath. I enquired of the one immediately in front of our bow at what time proceedings would commence and terminate, and gathered that the contest was to last from half nine until two o'clock.
I walked into the village in deteriorating conditions, bought a paper and returned to the boat. By now the weather was truly atrocious, blowing hard and with a sleety rain. The gallant sportsmen all sat hunched behind their huge green brollies, grimly determined to outwit their fishy foes.
We settled down in the warmth of the boat, reading until lunch, after which I finished the tipcat, but declined to attempt to fix it on the stern in view of the conditions.
By a quarter past two the anglers were giving up, and by three had disappeared from the scene. I asked the last one as he slogged past if it had been worth it.
"Not really", he said "I got covered in dog muck, broke my glasses and had to fish one eyed all day."
It's a strange way to enjoy yourself.
The weather got even worse as the evening went on, until by bedtime the waves were flinging themselves across the Wide to break against Sanity's side with enough force to rock her.
Making the last thing cup of tea, I had to brace myself against the side of the work surface so as to fill the mugs from the kettle in safety. Despite it all, we slept quite well.
It was supposed to be better this morning, but although the wind had died down, there was still an unpleasant smirr of sleet. Nonetheless we both trekked into the village so as to get some exercise; we had intended to go after the remaining geocaches around here, but it really wasn't the day for it.
Instead we've spent another one inside. I've nearly finished the Count of Monte Cristo on the Sony Reader; it's the first time I've read it from beginning to end, and I'm eally enjoying it in a way that I would not have done in my youth.
The other source of entertainment has been the ending of the saga of Elanor's mattress. This is a memory foam mattress she ordered some little while ago from Foam For Comfort, the people who supplied one for Braidbar 100.
There are a lot of suppliers of memory foam these days, but they seemed to be reasonably priced; Elanor was particularly struck by the fact that their sales person reckoned that the carrier they use would be flexible about delivery times, as she has the usual problems of the person living alone and working all day when it comes to such matters.
She was therefore not a little peeved to receive a letter from the carrier complaining that they'd been trying to deliver it but unable to get in touch with her. When she rang, she was told that all deliveries were on days fixed by the postcode, and that no undertaking could be given as to when it would arrive; it could be at any time between seven in the morning to seven at night.
Fortunately, Elanor has some leave left to take this year, so she arranged to be in all day last Thursday, one of the days that DSV consent to deliver in the Burton area. At lunchtime, she had a call from them: guess what, they'd had a computer problem and her mattress wasn't on the van.
She expressed herself forcibly to the representative of the firm, and even more so in an email to Foam for Comfort. The MD of that organisation said, inter alia, in reply:
Sorry to hear you are having problems with DSV, this is most unusual. In 5 years of dealing with them I have only had three complaints (this includes yours & one for a damaged mattress) they are normally very reliable and helpful.
For mattress deliveries we are restricted to a limited number of carriers as they have to be two manned delivery vans and these do tend to be specialized companies with limited fleet size, therefore they do have to deliver to certain areas on certain days, however they normally give you an allocated time slot within a couple of hours.
She did get a further call from DSV, offering to deliver the next day, i.e. Friday, but of course that was no use to her as she needed to go to work. They therefore agreed to deliver today, and to let her know at the end of the day on Friday whether it would be in the morning or the afternoon. In fact, it turned out that it would be at lunchtime or just after: not the handiest timing for someone living in Burton but working in Rugeley.
In the event, it turned up at nearly half two today, in a van with only a driver, who had to be persuaded to help Elanor carry the thing upstairs, and certainly wasn't about to help her carry the old one down.
So much for "We need to use a two manned delivery van". The outer packaging was also wet and smelly – her mattress has clearly been stood around in a wet warehouse for some time.
I'll let you know how Elanor gets on actually sleeping on the thing – I just hope that it's as comfortable as claimed, so that at least something of Foam for Comfort's sales talk is true.
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