Catching up with stuff

My hospital appointment meant I wasn't able to do a post at the usual time yesterday, so what with Sally hijacking the blog the other day and everything else, it's been a while.

It was actually a very pleasant run from Alrewas, six hours steady boating apart from a ten minute break to get someone's fender line off the prop. It had the remains of a cabin rail hook on it; everytime I went astern there was a scary banging from under the deck. On the whole it was a relief to find the cause, rather than the gearbox or drive plate giving up on us.

When we got to Mercia our pontoon entry was made easier by the fact that Geoff is away at the moment. Since Caitlin Jayne was also off her berth, the whole place looked very quiet. Martin and Mina on Kilgarrah next door brought us up to date with the marina goss, as did Lloyd and Helen later in the day.

Yesterday, Martin and Mina left to head south and west; they've got a residential mooring at Worcester organised, nearer to Martin's family. We'll really really miss them, they became good friends very quickly and we hope we'll meet up with them on the cut some day.

Their exit meant that there were now only two boats across five spaces, but Caitlin Jayne has since returned from a visit to the other side of the marina. Mercia really is so big you can take your holiday break cruising round it…

/wahaha

Sheila's been doing a lot of catching up too – with the laundry. She'd deliberately let it mount up a bit, knowing that we'd have lots of time to get it all sorted this week.

Yesterday afternoon we went into Burton and I had my MRI scan to make sure that my head is all right, a forlorn hope if ever I met one. (Actually, the term forlorn hope didn't originally mean what we take it to mean now, it comes from the Dutch for "lost troop" and referred to the company of infantry leading the charge into battle. You can see how the meaning shifted.)

The scan was very professionally done and not as tedious as I'd been led to expect, though I guess heads are better than other bits as a) it doesn't take so long as bigger bits and b) you only get slid part way into the tunnel. I have to wait three weeks for the result, so we won't hang about here for that.

After we got away, we caught a bus to Dallow Lane and walked along the towpath to Elanor's. From there we all went to the Mill House for dinner. Sally came too and was very well behaved. We ate outside and she spent most of the time lying down by Elanor.

When Elanor's toad in the hole arrived she did put her chin on the table (Sal, not Elanor) and look hopefully at the sausages. I know the greyhounds reading this will be disgusted to learn that none were forthcoming for her. Apart from the need to maintain dominance over a large and powerful dog, there's a more physical reason for this.

Sal's tummy is one of those which reacts vigorously, shall we say, to rich food.

Today we're planning to walk to Findern garden centre. There's also some work we want to do on the boat, particularly painting the gunwales with black silk, but as the forecast is drier for tomorrow than today we've got a good excuse to put it off.

I won't blog again today; normal service tomorrow.