A bit of a chill out day

It's not that the weather has been particularly cold, though it turned wet unexpectedly after lunch, but we've been rather somnolent this afternoon. With only seven lock-miles to do, we didn't set off until eight this morning, Sheila steering and your correspondent making cheap yogurt and otherwise pottering about below.

(Cheap yogurt: using an EasiYo maker, put half of a one litre pack of semi skimmed UHT in the jar, add three tablespoons of milk powder and two to three tablespoons of a previously made EasiYo yogurt. Cap and shake well, and top up to the litre with more UHT. Place in yogurt making flask in boiling water in the usual way. My thanks to Jan Jones of Kelly-Louise, Waiorou one day, for the inspiration for this.)

Our locking down Meaford was met by three boats coming up, the first and third being Anglo Welsh and the middle one a Chas Hardern boat, his new one, Strider, crewed by some Canadian ladies. In fact, they turned the second lock down right in front of us, but were such innocents abroad I didn't have the heart to remonstrate, not being Maffi.

/nobigdeal

Indeed, at least they had a sensible target for the day, "that pottery place" where they planned to lunch. The first boat seemingly had left Great Haywood on Friday, and guess what, they were doing the Four Counties in a week, in the case of one half of the two couples involved, for the second time this year, going the other way round this time. They were aiming to be north of Harecastle by the end of the day, and looked a little downhearted when I told them that they needed to be there by three to be sure of a passage.

We tied at the top of Stone just after eleven. This is now our preferred mooring for Stone, much better than the scrum at the bottom, and only a little further to walk into the centre. A trip to Morrisons topped up the supplies, including pasties for lunch, yum.

Then, as I said, the rain started, so we picked a dry pause in the showers to drop the cratch and light the fire, and we've been dozing ever since.

One other real positive; a call from Peter Mason informed us that he's now had three orders as a result of the Open Day, so apart from a slot that might still be free next March, the next available build slot is April 2013. A warm welcome to any of those new prospective Braidbar Owners reading this blog; you won't regret it, I promise you.

Reading the blog, that is.

/wahaha