Through Fradley

We did some more serious boating today, leaving Huddlesford at around eight. Sheila steered the final section of the Coventry, whilst I played at look out with the new radios. There was a certain amount of boat traffic, but we were able to find a slot on the visitor moorings at Fradley quite easily, so as to unload rubbish and recycling.

We found that the radio would reach from the mooring just at the start of the VM to the rubbish point down on the T&M without too much difficulty, so well out of line of sight and round some buildings to boot.

Once the stuff was disposed of, I worked the locks up to Shade House, going quite slowly as we were following a young man in a small cruiser which he was taking to Liverpool. Woodend was very slow; the top ground paddle is out of action, so it can only be filled with the gate paddle. There was a serious queue waiting to go down by the time we were up. There's to be a half day stoppage on 7 July to clear the paddle culvert.

We've tied at bridge 55, just beyond Kings Bromley Marina. This afternoon, we took the failed Gelert chairs back to the garden centre where we bought them. They've taken them from us to consult the Gelert rep, and will be in touch, they say. More news as we get it. We could have stood on our Sale of Goods Act rights, I supposed, and just demanded a refund, but we weren't in a mood to make trouble.

The rest of the day has passed quietly, with sunny intervals enough to dry the wash load that we ran whilst boating.

I've added a page about the police non-emergency numbers; these are the ones you can use to report stuff to the police that doesn't justify a 999 call. At the moment, they are largely specific to a given force. There's a nationwide number, 101, slowly being rolled out, but it only applies to four forces so far. My thanks to Graham Keens, from whose site I've lifted them. They are also available from a Direct Gov site.