…dam( p) afternoon. We had a good evening yesterday; Gill and Des came round in good time so that we could have a drink and a natter on board before going to the pub. The meal was just fine; The Plough has returned to its former state as a boater's pub, with excellent beer (though a very poor choice of lager) and a fairly basic menu. All our food was well cooked and tasty, and reasonably priced; it worked out at £15 per head for two courses and a round of drinks.
The place was very quiet, which may have had something to do with it being the Tuesday after a Bank Holiday Monday, so just at the moment it's a great place to go if you're passing in a boat. Ignore the website that comes up if you Google the name; that seems to be a hangover from the failed "fine dining" endeavour.
Today we were up in very good time, and boating before seven. This was partly our preferred style, but also because the forecast promised rain later. It worked out very well – we got to Sutton Road Bridge by half nine, having had the benefit of sunny intervals most of the way. There was a fair bit of traffic about, but plenty of room to tie here.
After an early coffee, we had a good bout of retail therapy, visiting Boots, Marks and Sparks, WH Smith and Sainsbury's. We got back to the boat just in nice time to put it all away before lunch.
By the time we'd eaten, it had started to rain, and it's kept it up all day. We've seen a lot of boats go by, their steerers mostly hunched glumly over the tiller. The moral is, they should have got up in the morning!
/wahaha
I've had to light the fire again; Sheila had run the washing machine as we boated along, so we've got a sheet drying on the rack in front of the stove.
Tomorrow, we'll get a pump out and diesel from Fazeley Mill, hopefully, and set off back towards Alrewas.
Glad to hear The Plough is back up and running and the prices have obviously got back to something bordering on normality. We may even risk it in a couple of weeks time when we pass.
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