Surprisingly active day

Just to prove that we don't always spend the days when we're not cruising just loafing about, we've had quite a busy time today, sitting here at Alrewas waiting for our dental appointments tomorrow.

First off, I should report that Sally says thanks to all her admirers for their kind remarks about her blog post yesterday; she'll try to blog more often as there's such a demand. Woof!

On the subject of Sally's boating career, we spent the morning cleaning the boat, and several dustpans-full of dog hair were removed, as well as various strange shaped marks off the walls (Sally has a bit of a "thing" about shiny highlights flickering on surfaces, and sometimes tries to lick them off).

A washload was run at the same time, and we generally have a much smarter boat inside. After a walk this afternoon, we decided that the stove will be needed only occasionally for the rest of the spring and summer, so we've put the coal box, the scuttle and various associated bits and bobs away in the bow locker, leaving lots more room for sitting out in the well deck.

So all seemed hunky dory, when an email arrived from Susan at Braidbar, passing on one from Waterways World in connection with their organisation of Crick Show. I had hoped that having a waterways related company in charge would mean a better, more boater friendly show, but I am beginning to have my doubts.

In previous years, as with pretty well every other show or festival, boats booked to attend were given a specific location on the towpath at which to moor. For us at Crick, this has worked really well. The Braidbar boats bringing helpers to the show were all booked in by Susan, and so ended up moored together, making the socialising very easy, and providing a block of boats we could show to people who wanted to see what one looked like after a few years' use.

This year, instead:

All mooring will be on a first come first served basis so that we can utilise the full capacity of the mooring area. Boats can arrive anytime from Wedensday (sic) 25^th May. ... Boats should arrive together to ensure they will be moored together.

Since it'll be pretty well impossible to arrange for boats coming from all over the system to arrive together, we'll be spread out all down the line of moorings. I don't understand the "utilise the full capacity of the moorings" bit – surely the best way to do that is to sit with a plan and a list of the boats to be accommodated and work out the best arrangement?

At the IWA National Festival, volunteer organisers manage to do just that for between 350 and 500 boats, but apparently WW can't achieve it for around 50. The conclusion I come to is that this year's Crick Show isn't going to be run for the benefit of the boaters, the exhibitors or the visitors, it's being run for the convenience of the organisers.

Come on, WW, show us you can do better than that.

Please?