Sunday 7 April 2013

Reasons to be cheerful

It's just amazing how boating lifts the spirits, especially when the weather is as benign as it's been this weekend. We've made it to Alrewas, starting at half eight and getting here just after eleven. There was even a space on the handy moorings between the lock and the water point, next to what was Rebel's field.

There's just a nice amount of traffic about, with the result that we crossed with boats moving in the opposite direction at most of the locks. I've survived my return to lock wheeling without too many aches and pains, though I'm sure some will develop over the next couple of days.

We've arranged to meet Jane and Will here for lunch on Tuesday, so we've got a bit of a moral dilemma; these are 48 hours moorings – do we overstay by a day, or shuffle along the towpath to the 14 day ones on Tuesday morning?

Oh dear, decisions, decisions.

This afternoon I did a bit of preparatory work on a scrape along part of the starboard cabin side. I rubbed the places down with fine wet and dry and applied a coat of primer/undercoat. Tomorrow, we'll wash that side, then I'll put on the blue top coat. There are a couple of spots where the damage has run over onto the coach line, so a bit of masking off and touching in with cream will be done later.

Now, more positives; first off, a big thank you to Helga1 for a great review of Practically Cooking on Board. As long as even one person has found the book useful, the effort was all worthwhile, so I'm a very happy man!

Thanks too to those who left comments on yesterday's blog, welcoming us back to cruise mode. Just one thing, Chris – I didn't realise that Helen and Lloyd were supposed to pay us

Two good things from the boating so far: it's been really noticeable that a lot of the offside growth has been cut back, making navigation so much easier. Whether this has been done by volunteers in the way we did some from Mercia in the autumn, or whether CRT are paying to have it done, it's really worthwhile. You just have to remember that the cut will still be quite shallow where the overgrowth used to be.

And finally, I've spotted lots of places where swans are nesting, and in some cases have already laid eggs; Spring is definitely with us, folks, as the presence of busking cobs menacing the boat demonstrates very clearly.

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