Back to Alrewas...

… but not by boat. Lloyd on Alice is a splendid chap, in fact he's an ace geezer, and very cheerfully gave me lift over there this morning. He was quite prepared to wait, but it didn't seem fair to keep him from the workload he's got on helping others around the marina whilst I went through my regular nurse check, so I said that I'd get the bus back.

The check itself went just fine, though some of my blood test results from the sample I gave a fortnight ago had got lost, and will have to be done again. It's the first time it's ever happened to me in the nearly ten years I've been having them, so I can't really complain I guess.

If asked, the usual lab explanation is "the sample tube broke in the centrifuge", which you can't argue with, even if you suspect it really means "the lab tech dropped it as he was preparing it". Typically, one of the tests which will now be rerun is the one for which I fasted for 14 hours last time in the cause of a more accurate result, but that's life.

Anyway, Nurse Ros was more than happy with me, so apart from ringing the surgery next week to check the final results, I'm done with for six months.

When I got out, it was quarter past ten. The bus back to Burton leaves at nine minutes past the hour…

In order to pass the time, I took a walk down to the lock. Amazingly, the visitor moorings there were completely empty. The lock is being stopped for maintenance from Monday 5th November, but that just means there should be a load of boats heading east just now.

Look Ma, no boats!

The one boat there, taking on water, was one I'd admired a few weeks ago at Great Haywood, Bobcat. I had a good old natter with her owner, and found out that she too is a blogger. It was really good to meet up, and have a good winter in Barton marina, Bobcat!

The 11.09 bus was 15 minutes late – the Arriva services seem to have much more trouble running to time than the Trent Barton ones we use to get from the marina to both Burton and Derby – and the result was that I missed my connection in Burton by two minutes.

The V3 is an hourly service, so I went off to get some lunch and kill some time. Burton is nothing like as good as Derby for lunching; I don't know how the local office workers survive. There are a couple of coffee shop type places in Coopers Square, and a Gregg's and Subway selling sandwiches and stuff to eat out, but no big group of fast food outlets.

I took a look at the Sainsbury's cafe, but that menu was not enticing either. In the end I bought some sarnies from there, and managed to find a space on one of the few seats in Coopers Square to sit and eat them.

The 13.05 V3 left Burton on time, as usual, and I got back to the boat just after half one.

Sheila had been busy while I was away; the water tank is full, and she'd cleaned out and relit the Squirrel.

Tonight we can have the pork loin steaks I bought at Coates, with some purple sprouting broccoli from Sainsbury's. And a drink.