Chilling out at Kingsbury

6th, 7th & 8th May

We’ve been chilling out for the last three days, unfortunately literally in the case of the recent weather. On Thursday, I set off to pop round to the Tesco Express for bits and pieces before we came up here to Kingsbury Water Park, and noticed on the way that Sanity’s bow locker was open. Nothing was missing, but it still suggested that it would be a bad idea to leave her all alone on the Birmingham and Fazeley moorings.

Accordingly, when I got back, we loaded all the stuff out of her bow locker and off the roof into the cabin, then boated her round the corner onto the much busier moorings on the Coventry. Sheila then steered Sanity Again down the canal to Kingsbury, whilst I pottered about below.

There was just a GRP hippy hutch here when we arrived, though boats have been coming and going over the past couple of days. Sheila did a bit of bird watching, but it’s not really the best time; most of them are sitting on nests at the moment. In addition, sadly most of the hides have suffered from some vandalism, and one is closed altogether.

After lunch, we took a stroll up the first few locks of the flight, for the exercise and fresh air.

Yesterday was a real pottering day. We searched for a couple of geocaches in the morning (found one, missed one) and left our new Help for Heroes Geocoin in the one we did find.

In the afternoon, Sheila did some brass polishing, and I fiddled about tidying up the odd bit of overpainting from the windows and the brass rails the back hatch slide runs on. Otherwise, we kept up to date with the election results via the BBC website.

Just at the end of the afternoon, Rita and Scobie turned up on Festina Lente. We haven't seen them properly since we were stranded together at Rushden and Diamonds on the Nene three years ago, so it was good to have a drink and natter for a bit, as well as showing off Sanity Again, of course.

Today, the weather has been truly awful. We have to get a pump out sometime in the next two days, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the forecast will be correct and we’ll see better weather tomorrow.

We’ve been sorting out cupboards, gradually moving from the way they were all swiftly loaded during the move to a more rational arrangement. Apart from that, we’ve been doing internet stuff and reading; I’ve lit the Squirrel again, so as to keep us reasonably cosy despite the wind and rain.

I’ve also discovered, quite by chance, that BBC iPlayer now works for TV as well as radio on the T-mobile connection; before, it identified the IP address as overseas, and wouldn’t let you watch. I found myself absorbed in an episode of Dr Who; a classic case of “I’ll just watch a few minutes to make sure it’s working” and coming to an hour later with a not impressed Sheila justifiably complaining that I’d not announced my intention of doing so or invited her to join in.

At three quarters of a gigabyte per episode, it’s not something to do regularly, but it does add an extra option for in-boat entertainment. Mind you, if it’s anything like our DVD usage, it won’t be a frequent event.