Arrving at Alrewas for Christmas

21st & 22nd December

We've reached the solstice at last; the change in day length won't really be apparent until after the New Year, but at least we're going in the right direction now. Our mooring just short of the Lichfield Cruising Club, coming from the Whittington side, proved to be very tranquil, with the sole exception of an occasional barking dog in the evening. It's better screened from the railway there than through on the other side beside the Plough; indeed when we set off yesterday morning, we soon saw that we would have been pushed to find a space there amongst the various lurkers.

It was mild and cloudy, but very pleasant boating. Sheila stayed below doing bits and pieces whilst I leant on the tiller as we chugged gently on. Florrie came off the bank just in front of me as I came through Bridge 88, but stayed well ahead. When we got to Fradley, he'd stopped on the nearer of the two water points just before the swing bridge. We pulled in ahead of him and started watering too.

Perhaps because we were using both taps at once, the flow was very slow. We had the washing machine on as well, and we became concerned that we'd get into the situation where the machine reaches its rinse cycle and start using water faster than the tap is supplying it.

For this reason we settled for 70% of a tank, and started to coil the hose. Florrie finished at the same time, but suggested that we go first as he was both single handing, and planning to stop again on the rubbish point below Junction Lock.

There were boats in all directions as we came through the junction; you can tell that it's now the school holidays. Nonetheless, with Sheila on the bike and your correspondent on the tiller we made steady progress to Alrewas, arriving just at lunchtime.

I'd been concerned that we'd have trouble finding a space on the village moorings, but in the event there was plenty of choice, though they've gradually filled up over the last 24 hours.

After lunch, I checked the state of play with the accumulator, which had indeed lost pressure again. Right, I thought, we'll order both accumulator and pump from the handy Jabsco shop website. It proceeded to give me severe grief. It looks like a well ordered site, but the basket when filled didn't transfer to the checkout.

I found a note on one of the pages asking the customer to email the shop if this happened, so I did. The email came bouncing back "Sender refused". After playing about with the email and using my alternate, .Mac address, I gave up. A bit of Googling established that the DNS blacklist they were using to block spam had ceased to be updated a couple of years ago, and last March had listed the whole world. This means that any email sent to the jabscoshop email address will be refused.

Aaargh.

More hunting around discovered that the tank is available from the Limekiln chandlery site, and the pump is listed as being available at Shobnall.

Aha, we thought, we could boat down to Burton after Christmas, call in at Shobnall and get the stuff. So I rang Shobnall this morning, and, of course, they are closed between Christmas and New Year. I've ordered the tank from Limekiln, no problem there, and we'll go to Shobnall when they reopen. We'll just have to hope that the pump keeps going, as it probably will. If the worst comes to the worst, at least we are near a water point, and can cope with fetching water in containers if we have to.

I also finished the button fender yesterday, and fitted it today. It looks pretty good, though I say it myself (and so does Sheila, who's completely unbiased in these matters).

Elanor came for dinner last night, bearing our post. The new BW licence has arrived, so that's a relief. As last year, we've photocopied the licences, wrapped the copies in cling film to protect them from the damp, and put them in the portholes. As soon as we can, we'll get the real ones laminated, so that they last all year without getting manky from condensation.

Apart from that, Sheila's had a buckshee trip to the dentist, been diagnosed with a gum infection and put on antibiotics, so no booze for her for 5 days. We took a walk down to inspect the new boom across the weir, having heard the account of how it got damaged in the first place from Harry Arnold who was passing by.

Apparently, it's the subject of a dispute between the boat concerned and BW, so I'd better not say any more here.

We'll sit tight now until we need to move for more water, which will probably be in a couple of days' time, I guess.