A therapeutic sort of day

Things are looking up, including the weather, though it's not quite flaming June yet. With no locks for quite a while, Sheila did one of her flying starts and was boating by quarter past six. I took a bit more time to rise and shine and took over steering an hour later. It was pleasantly dry and sunny, albeit with a chilly breeze still hanging around. We had a good run through Polesworth, Alvecote and Amington to the Glascote Two. The top lock was full and the bottom one empty, probably because the top gate of the one and the bottom gates of the other were leaking merrily away.

As we came over the aqueduct over the Tame, we could see a mud hopper drifting about across the cut. One end had come free of its blue string mooring alongside the CRT maintenance yard just there. I tried ringing CRT to report it, but the central board couldn't get the Fazeley office to answer. Accordingly, we stopped briefly outside Peel's Wharf and I nipped in to let them know.

By eleven we'd reached Sutton Road Bridge where we found a mooring amongst some liveaboards. This is one of those locations where there are either no boats at all, or quite a lot, presumably because of the floating community that wanders about these waterways.

We had time to get some retail therapy in before lunch. A visit to Sainsbury's got some provender that hadn't been available at Aldi. I also bought some more rechargeable AA and AAA batteries from Maplins and we had a look at hose reels in B&Q; our current one isn't the most convenient to use. We were really looking for an empty reel we could transfer out existing hose onto, but instead got a nice Hozelock job with 25 meters of new hose. It will need a good rinsing before we use it to fill the tank, though of course our Seagull IV water filter will strip out any nasties left over from the manufacturing process.

We've been pottering after lunch, sorting the new hose reel, potting up a basil plant that we got in Sainsbury's, refilling the handwash dispenser. Serious efforts have been made in the sitting out on the bow and crossword completion directions too. Tonight, a salad since the weather is even better than it was, Melton Mowbray pork pie, cous cous with bits in it, fresh basil leaves, stuffed olives, chilled white wine and so on.

Could be a good evening...