A lurking wet day

As foretold, we've spent the day indoors, not even emerging to go for a walk, it's been so wet. It did indeed rain for much of the day; a review of the forecast suggests that our best strategy will be to boat through to Sutton Road Bridge tomorrow, then sit tight again there over the weekend. We'll just have to take care not to tie under any trees in view of the likely wind.

Despite the horrible conditions, there has been a fair number of boats go by, one of the first of which was Caxton with her proud new owners George and Susan. We didn't get a chance to chat, it wouldn't have been fair to ask them to stop in the downpour.

Much internet stuff has been done and we rounded off a day more like winter than spring by watching Scales of Justice, the last episode of the Alleyn Mysteries BBC series. In addition a wash load was run whilst we had the engine on to charge the batteries, the solar panel not contributing much in the murk.

We've also been hit for the third time in three days, this time by a boat bearing a sign saying that it had just been sold by Venetian Marine, the marina and boat brokerage on the Middlewich Arm of the Shroppie. My first thought was that if you buy a boat not having any experience of steering one, the first few days are likely to be a bit hairy and indeed this boat proceeded to tack off down the cut. It was quite possibly heading for London to swell the numbers of residential boats there trying to stay within the Guidelines for boats without a home mooring.

But then I thought "from Venetian Marine, he's at least climbed the Cheshire Locks, passed through Harecastle Tunnel and worked right down the other side through Stoke, Stone, Great Haywood and Fradley. Even going all day it must have taken him five or six days, surely he should have the hang of it by now?"

We can go for a whole year without being hit, how come we're suddenly being clouted as often as Steve Pigott does on Dolce far Niente? Then Sheila realised: Steve's forever polishing his boat and we've just polished Sanity Again. The shine must dazzle the approaching boaters.

So there's your answer, Stephen. Stop polishing the thing and people will stop running into you...

:))