A bit of excitement on the way home

We had a couple of interesting experiences on the way home yesterday. First off, there was the body on the towpath above Tatenhill lock. Lying on the waterside edge of the towpath, this old dear was curled up on her side with some belongings nearby. I couldn't get the boat in before the lock landing, so Elanor had a bit of a walk back to her, wondering what she was going to find.

In fact she was just asleep with her glasses neatly on the ground beside her and her head resting on her handbag. Later on, as we were entering the lock, I saw her stand up, turn round and lie down again.

Just seemed an odd place for a kip, that's all.

Secondly, we've previously had bother persuading Sanity Again to leave Dallow lock when working downhill, but this time she was firmly aground and flatly refused to move. In the end, I had to draw a top paddle and flush her out. Once she was moving, I dropped the paddle and she promptly stopped again. I had to leave the paddle up until she was clear of the lock.

The pound was a bit down, but not that much. There's just too much silt in the bottom of that lock. I've emailed CRT via the website about it – they don't seem to publish email addresses for individual waterway offices any more, so I've bunged another email off to Damian Kemp at head office about that, too.

We're now back in the lodge, hiding from the sun and catching up with the laundry. Next trip will be towards the end of this month, on our way to Poynton for the Braidbar Owners' Weekend. If there's any water to boat in by then, of course...

Successful day

Elanor now has a new ceiling in the back bedroom and we've moved some of the furniture back in. I'm sat on the sofa snuggling with Sally whilst Sheila makes do with the temporary bed on the floor.

Elanor should be back soon to take us home, bringing cheap chicken with her, hooray.

Derby tomorrow and a quiz evening later – it's all go this week.

Getting back to "normal"

Sheila went for a hairdo today and came back with a message that I was to get on and do a proper blog again... Truly, life onboard can be very strange. Anyway, it's a very good hairdo courtesy of Jo's itinerant hairdresser, probably the best she's had for a while.

I won't bore you with thrilling accounts of tiling bathroom floors and rollering emulsion onto walls. I'll just confirm that it was all worthwhile and Elanor's house really shows the benefit. There's still plenty to do in the other rooms and the hall, stairs and landing, but we've made a good start.

We'll get a bit more done over a couple of weekends, especially some paint stripping with Nitromors that proved impractical whilst Elanor was sleeping there. She's coming to stay with us to avoid the fireworks at Hallowe'en and on the Saturday after Guy Fawkes, so we'll probably spend the days in her house and the evenings on the boat.

Today, we've all had a day off. Sheila and I spent it on the boat (surprise, a wash load did get run) and Elanor went riding. I've taken the opportunity to scrub personal stuff off the hard disk of an old laptop. It's a G3 Bronze PowerBook that I had as a work machine originally then bought from the University and gave to Elanor to use. She's long since replaced it with a later MacBook and it's been lying around gathering dust for years.

I managed to get it booted up and then had to remember how to work MacOS 9.2... Finally, I set it up as a target disk on the Mini so as to use the OSX sophisticated deletion process. After trashing the personal info, I used Disk Utility to write zeros over all the unused space on the disk.

I suspect that the machine is only good for recycling, but I'll ask about in case there's a charity that wants it to send out to a developing country. It's still a perfectly good machine, just needs its battery replacing.

The other IT task was to rip the two DVDs Elanor gave me for my birthday, the Kenneth Branagh Much Ado about Nothing and the Trevor Nunn Twelfth Night with Helena Bonham Carter, Nigel Hawthorne et al. By converting them to mp4 we can watch them on both the laptop and the iPads if we want.

We'll have another quiet day tomorrow, then we're off back to Elanor's on Tuesday, house and dog sitting whilst a plasterer repairs water damage to the back bedroom ceiling. Wednesday, we're into Derby for the day and being quiz masters in the evening.

It's all go at the moment.

What happened?

I'm sure it's not a year since the last one. Oh well, as Picasso said, growing old is infinitely preferable to the alternative. Mind you, Lincoln said you shouldn't believe everything you read on the Internet... ;)

Work has continued at Elanor's and we should get the front bedroom completely finished and the bathroom almost so. We just have to work out how to get a new panel for the bath into a Honda Civic Type S.

Sheila's trip to the Orthopod went off ok, though the clinic was running very late and there was a cock up over getting her X-ray done which meant that we were there all afternoon. We now wait for a date for her other foot.

Finally, I took advantage of a trip to B&Q to buy a new shower head for the boat, the old one having succumbed to the wear and tear of de-scaling. It's a Mira Eco head which injects air into the stream, reducing the amount of water used "by up to 75%". It's certainly very pleasant to use, like showering in warm soda water, but how we work out if we're saving water, I don't know.

Though it certainly reduces rinsing times, so maybe it will.

 

Still here, working hard

It's been a productive weekend and we've made a good start on the decorating tasks at Elanor's. She picks us up from the marina around half nine and we work on the jobs until early afternoon with breaks for coffee and lunch.

Then we come back to the boat, give Sally a walk round the marina and have some downtime before dinner. Sally is not at all sure about it all, naturally, though she appreciates having all her humans around.

I'll pop the occasional note on here like this, but blogging every day would be a bit repetitive! We'll be at the Royal tomorrow afternoon for Sheila to see her Orthopod, so I'll give a progress report on that on Wedensday morning, probably.

Busy morning, quiet afternoon

After a very broken night from a number of causes at once, we were a bit anxious about how today would work out, but in the event it all went very well. Elanor picked us up just after nine and the first port of call was the Trent Washlands where we exercised Sally. She really enjoys romping about there – it was very warm, so we threw sticks into the river for her to collect.

When Elanor first had Sally, the dog was reluctant even to get her tummy wet, but she now swims after sticks enthusiastically, so that she gets both serious exercise and cooled down. Next stop was the tip where we got rid of the used oil that's been hanging about since I did the end of season oil change last October. Finally, we got to Elanor's house.

Sheila got on with weeding the gravel borders to the lawn whilst Elanor with my assistance put fresh felt on the shed roof. She's inherited from me a heavy duty staple gun that made short work of fixing the felt down. The main challenge was finding our way into the little runnel across the back of her garden. This could only be accessed by walking down the Derby Road to a side road, into another bit of the estate along there and so between two houses to find this odd back passage.

We had to explore a little bit before we found exactly the right gap between the right houses, which, since I was carrying a pair of folding stepladders, must have looked a bit suspicious to say the least. No matter, we made it and secured those edges. Finally, we went next door to get at the side of the roof next to the boundary fence and all was done.

After lunching there and admiring the improved appearance of the house and garden as a result of all Elanor's work, we headed back to the boat, calling in at Morrisons on the way for some salad stuff and some prawns to go with it.

We've had a lazy afternoon on the bow since, drinking a drop of chilled white wine and being entertained by the entrants to the Four Counties Canoe Race who have been coming past from time to time. Apparently they were paddling from Wolseley Bridge to Colwick Marina, Nottingham in two days, having visited four counties (Staffs, Derbys, Leics, Notts) on the way. When we first saw their tee shirts, we thought it referred to the Four Counties Ring.

Sooner them than me, it looked cruel hard in this warm weather...

Tomorrow, we'll make an early start to beat the rush and press on to Alrewas. It looks like rain for some of the time, but we're going to have a heat wave later in the week, apparently.

 

An easy Saturday

It's been a good day, but I've not a lot to say. We had a lazy start, then went shopping for kindling, firelighters and meat. Some pottering and Independent reading took us up to lunchtime, when the ale bread buns tasted very good though I say it myself.

Sheila stayed home to do some more furniture oiling whilst Elanor took me to the library. There, renewing my bus pass was very straightforward, once one librarian had shown the other how to do it...

We gave Sal a good run on the Washlands and came back to the boat for a family natter.

Stuffed pork loin chops with mash and peas tonight, methinks. And I plan yet more home baked bread.

This could get to be a habit...

Objectives achieved

After a relaxed start, we pottered about in the boat doing this and that until Elanor arrived and took us to her house. We'd already been across to the Farm Shop for the pasties, so were ready to go.

Once there, Sheila got busy with a huge stack of DVDs that Elanor's finished with, choosing some to go in the lodge for our guests to use on a rainy day and checking out the resale value of likely looking others, mainly box sets. Individual DVDs tend to be on sale for not much more than a quid, so hardly worth the trouble of putting them on Amazon or eBay and then posting them off.

The balance will be taken to the British Heart Foundation charity shop, whilst I'll be busy tomorrow putting the saleable ones online.

Whilst this was going on, Elanor and I put up a roller blind in her kitchen. It's not my favourite job because of the need to get the brackets exactly the right distance apart, but it got done with no more than the usual grief and hassle.

Back at the marina, we gave Sally a good frisbee chasing session in the continuing strong winds before going our separate ways. Sheila and I have been lurking in the boat since, though Sheila did take a load of washing to tumble dry.

We're planning a quiet day tomorrow and hoping to have a quiet night tonight first; last night was a bit disturbed what with the boat rocking, the wind noise and the sloshing of waves against the hull sides.

So far, so good

I'm writing this standing in a bus shelter waiting for the 17.15 back to the marina. All's gone well today: the Ocado delivery was in good time, my dentistry was not especially painful.

I just wish the bus service to Alrewas coordinated a bit better with the V3. I got back to Burton just after four, but had to hang about until now for the next bus.

Heigh ho, a proper blog tomorrow, folks, promise.

Enjoying a sunny Saturday

We’ve had another glorious day weatherwise, with bright sun, not much wind and a frosty feel to the air. The leaves are now almost entirely off the trees so navigation will be being made more interesting by the leaves-on-the- prop phenomenon, no doubt.

The main event of interest this morning was the emailing out of the Mercia Mercury with our quiz in. It’s a bumper edition this month and does a brilliant job of keeping us up to speed with developments; building the boardwalk, introducing new staff member Josh and progress towards getting planning permission for residential moorings here, not to mention some of the Christmas festivities.

We had a pleasant stroll round the marina this morning; after lunch Elanor came across and I joined her and Sally for a trip to the flood meadows of Burton, the ones that run behind the library and Meadowside centre all the way down to and beyond the Stapenhill Bridge.

These are much more extensive than I’d realised from Elanor’s description, with a good mix of areas where Sal had to be on the lead (I don’t think that the rugby players would have appreciated her joining in the game) and places where it was safe to let her off for a charge about and thorough rummage for bunnies.

We took about an hour to walk round, coming back past the river for Sal to have a paddle, then went back to Elanor’s to pick up some post. Back at the boat we had a family natter session before Elanor took Sal away for a rest.

Tonight I’m planning another culinary adventure; I bought some oak smoked garlic in Betty’s yesterday to try with the chicken I’m going to roast. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Meanwhile both Elanor and Sheila report that conversation is much easier with me these days; I’m getting used to the aid in my ear, though currently have to stop myself from absent-mindedly poking at it as if it was an itchy lump of wax.

/floor

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.

Not so perfect today

We had a lazy start and went into town on the 10.40 bus. Arriving at Queen's Hospital just before 12, I went into the vampire's den to have my blood test done. I wasn't totally surprised to be told that without a form, I couldn't have one. I'd asked the consultant in ENT about that when he said I should get my kidney function checked but he told me that I didn't need a form.

Fortunately, I'm not worried about my kidneys, (almost everything else, but not my kidneys) as I have their function checked regularly as part of my diabetes monitoring, so I'm not too bothered, but it doesn't do much for my confidence in the consultant. Assuming this scan is OK, as it almost certainly will be, I'll ask for a referral to Derby if I need any more ENT work done. There's no reference to needing a recent U&Es test in the stuff they've sent me about the scan.

We got sandwiches from the Costa kiosk in the hospital and had only just eaten them when a bus came to take us back into town. Shopping was done in Sainsbury's and Wilkinsons and then we hopped a bus back to Alrewas.

We've been pretty lazy since, recovering from the day's exertions. Although it's only been intermittently sunny, the solar panel had fully recharged the batteries, so I just needed to run the Hurricane for a bit to get hot water for showers and washing up.

One thing to mention from yesterday night; we had an excellent pineapple for mid-evening nibbles, one we'd got from Sainsbury's Tamworth on special offer for a quid. George's fiendish pineapple machine did its usual great job of reducing it to slices and we guzzled the lot, I fear.

I've been being a bit light hearted – not to say daft – all day today, despite the wasted journey to Queen's, but Sheila's blaming it on the mind altering effects of scoffing bromeliads.

/blur

Back to Alrewas...

… but not by boat. Lloyd on Alice is a splendid chap, in fact he's an ace geezer, and very cheerfully gave me lift over there this morning. He was quite prepared to wait, but it didn't seem fair to keep him from the workload he's got on helping others around the marina whilst I went through my regular nurse check, so I said that I'd get the bus back.

The check itself went just fine, though some of my blood test results from the sample I gave a fortnight ago had got lost, and will have to be done again. It's the first time it's ever happened to me in the nearly ten years I've been having them, so I can't really complain I guess.

If asked, the usual lab explanation is "the sample tube broke in the centrifuge", which you can't argue with, even if you suspect it really means "the lab tech dropped it as he was preparing it". Typically, one of the tests which will now be rerun is the one for which I fasted for 14 hours last time in the cause of a more accurate result, but that's life.

Anyway, Nurse Ros was more than happy with me, so apart from ringing the surgery next week to check the final results, I'm done with for six months.

When I got out, it was quarter past ten. The bus back to Burton leaves at nine minutes past the hour…

In order to pass the time, I took a walk down to the lock. Amazingly, the visitor moorings there were completely empty. The lock is being stopped for maintenance from Monday 5th November, but that just means there should be a load of boats heading east just now.

Look Ma, no boats!

The one boat there, taking on water, was one I'd admired a few weeks ago at Great Haywood, Bobcat. I had a good old natter with her owner, and found out that she too is a blogger. It was really good to meet up, and have a good winter in Barton marina, Bobcat!

The 11.09 bus was 15 minutes late – the Arriva services seem to have much more trouble running to time than the Trent Barton ones we use to get from the marina to both Burton and Derby – and the result was that I missed my connection in Burton by two minutes.

The V3 is an hourly service, so I went off to get some lunch and kill some time. Burton is nothing like as good as Derby for lunching; I don't know how the local office workers survive. There are a couple of coffee shop type places in Coopers Square, and a Gregg's and Subway selling sandwiches and stuff to eat out, but no big group of fast food outlets.

I took a look at the Sainsbury's cafe, but that menu was not enticing either. In the end I bought some sarnies from there, and managed to find a space on one of the few seats in Coopers Square to sit and eat them.

The 13.05 V3 left Burton on time, as usual, and I got back to the boat just after half one.

Sheila had been busy while I was away; the water tank is full, and she'd cleaned out and relit the Squirrel.

Tonight we can have the pork loin steaks I bought at Coates, with some purple sprouting broccoli from Sainsbury's. And a drink.

Change of plan

Not only was it raining heavily this morning, but the wind was gusting hard across the marina. This led to a rethink about our cunning cruising plan; we've stayed put. I travelled into Burton by the V3 bus, walked through Coopers Square and caught the 19 to Queen's Hospital for my Eye Clinic appointments (there's also the 3 service from the same stop outside Sainsbury's).

The clinic only ran an hour late this time, and I don't have to go back for a year, so by and large a result.

I caught the 3 back, and just managed to get the V3 from the stop where I got off the 3.

We'll probably leave the marina on Friday, stop at Barton or somewhere and go on into Alrewas on Saturday, but it all depends on the weather…

/hmm

On to Burton, then Willington

It was another A-team day, when the plan came together in a very gratifying way. We got up in good time and arrived at Shobnall just before nine. Into Cooper's Square we went, and chose some frames for new glasses at Vision Express. Then came the painful bit, agreeing what lenses we needed and which arm and leg were going to have to go to pay for them…

We're getting two pairs each, of which the simpler ones will be ready by Wednesday (they couldn't do them in the spot, the machine had broken down) and the varifocals will take a week or so longer. After giving the credit card a fright, we went back to Shobnall where we bought some more kindling and four bags of mixed ovals to keep us going until we get into Mercia.

By now it was after eleven, so we set off for the last stretch to Willington, lunching on the way. In fact, Sheila was in the middle of hers when we arrived, to find the moorings incredibly busy. We've ended up just off the end of the visitor moorings. Initially, we had a rather grotty bit of towpath to tie on, and indeed I took a tumble getting off the bow; it had drifted out, so I made a big jump, put my foot down a hole and fell flat on my face, skidding briefly along still clutching the whirligig support pole I'd been fetching.

The good news is that the pole was undamaged, and I'd been planning to put that hoodie and pair of trousers out for the wash anyway. A bit later, the boat in front left, and we were able to pull forward onto a better bit of towpath.

Once we were all sorted, we popped back along the moorings for a good old natter with Ivor Batchelor, who's swapped his working pair, Mountbatten and Jellicoe for a single motor, in fact a butty converted into a motor, Lepus. The pair are up for sale on Apollo Duck.

Ivor's no longer trading in coal, but Mel is still painting and selling canalware.

Tomorrow, we're having a family get together; Elanor has a free voucher for one of the Burton photographers, so Graeme, Cathy and the boys are coming over and we're all going to get our photies took.

I can see for miles and miles and miles...

Now that the drops have worn off, that is. We had a good session at Vision Express, just a shade late running. Sheila needs new specs, and I am just about changed enough to justify some too, so we'll sort those out on the way back through, I reckon.

I didn't feel like helping Sheila choose new frames whilst squinting through blurry eyes…

/blur

The run down this morning was very straightforward, and we got there in very good time, so were able to a) wind the boat before tying and b) unload all our recycling at the handily positioned council tip on the way. It was nearly lunchtime when we got back, so we ate and then moved the boat.

It was my turn to steer, and I was nearly fully functional again, so did the business. Actually, despite a certain fuzziness at more than 100 foot off, I managed a neat approach to the bottom of Branston Lock, though I say it myself. A single hander had just emerged and closed up as we came into view, but since the move off the lock landing into the lock is a bit tedious for a full length, I took Sanity Again gently up to the gates and Sheila hopped off to open them.

She afterwards told me that I'd stopped with just a few inches between the bow fender and the gates.

Neat, huh?

/nobigdeal

Back at Branston once more, we had a quick chat with Elanor on the phone, she being at home in her lunch break to run the pooch; she's stopping by tonight with a mail delivery.

The rest of the day has been pretty quiet, reading, doing the crossword and codeword, winding up Sue Cook of Indigo Dream on Twitter (Should that be twinding up?).

She claims that describing her car as stationery is valid as it's full of paperwork, but I thought it was already full of greyhounds…

/wahaha

We'll stay here for a couple of days, then back to Alrewas one last time for now.

Some days are diamond...

25th & 26th July

I don't know if it is old age or what, but this business of waking early is getting out of hand. Yesterday was another day when, since we didn't need to leave to walk into town until nine, we could have had a nice lie in. Instead of which we were up and about early and found ourselves pottering about filling in the time.

Actually, as so often, this is unfair to Sheila, who was industriously crocheting, but you know what I mean.

We normally try to avoid Saturday appointments for things like the opticians since a) things are always busier on Saturday and b) it seems unfair to take up an appointment outside the working week which could be used by someone with less choice in the matter than ourselves. In this case however SpecSavers had given us little option in the matter.

At least the experience confirmed the wisdom of our normal strategy. The place was heaving and the whole thing took much longer than normal because the various peripheral machines were in heavy use. However, it was finally over and we were free to retreat to the boat.

When we got back to the marina, we found Shiraz in the service dock and Sheila went for a natter with them whilst I enquired for the drive belt we had on order. This hadn't yet arrived, so they are going to keep it for us until we return in a couple of weeks' time.

I'd had the dreaded pupil expanding drops in my eyes, so Sheila did the boating while I waited for my vision to return to normal. Typically, it was a brilliantly sunny day and I had to go about looking like some sinister character in The Sopranos or The Wire, wearing large lensed prescription sun glasses under a long peaked baseball cap.

We got to the Morrison's mooring a bit after eleven. By the time we'd had a cup of coffee it was half past and lunch time was appearing over the horizon. With a bit of shopping to do it seemed best to do some more pottering / crocheting and then to shop after lunch.

The cut was now very busy indeed, and it seemed very possible that there would be little or no mooring space near the water park. Accordingly, we stopped on the towpath below Branston lock, which proved a wise decision. After a pause to allow my eyes to become nearly as normal as they ever are, we set off to visit five geocaches variously located between the railway and the river on the far side of Branston village.

I'm pleased to say we found all of them including the two micros, in the course of about six miles walking. It was a great way to use the first decent day we've had for some time, and today's weather has only confirmed how right we were to do so.

I'd planned an easy meal, consisting of Quorn escalopes, new potatoes and broccoli so that at least we were able to collapse for a time when we finally got back to the boat.

Before showering and cooking this meal, I sat on a stool on the towpath draped in a blue polythene cycle cape, whilst Sheila reduced the length of my hair with the aid of the clippers. I'm sometimes tempted to whistle "Delilah" whilst this is going on, thus combining subtle Biblical references with Sheila's fondness for Tom Jones hits, but it seems inadvisable when she's trimming my eyebrows with a sharp pair of scissors.

We were up and about early again this morning (gosh doesn't Radio 4 have some odd stuff on at 6am?), this time with justification as we wanted to boat through to Alrewas to arrive there between ten and eleven, and we estimated this would take something over three hours including a water stop at Barton Turn.

We got away just after seven, and were not the first boat up the lock even so. In fact the traffic was such as you'd normally expect in the middle of the day at a weekend rather than first thing in the morning.

Our timings were about right, allowing for a bit of extra delay at the locks, and it was twenty to eleven when we tied on the visitor moorings by the water point, where there was indeed plenty of room. They have since filled up as we expected.

The only real incident of note involved a fisherman rather than a boater. Contrary to all the advice and instructions issued to anglers, he had chosen to fish from the bullnose below Alrewas lock, using two rods to cast into the river. As I've said, there was a lot of boat traffic and so I had to wait on the nice new moorings below the lock whilst Sheila assisted the boat ahead to lock up. In turn this meant I had to boat across his swim when the lock was ready.

He left it to the last moment to reel in, one of his lines tangled and jammed, and his float disappeared under Sanity's stem as I powered into the lock, resisting the potent cross current from the millstream which makes this lock approach so interesting even without the presence of idiots.

There was nothing either of us could do and he had to cut his line to save his rod. Once Sanity was rising in the lock I got the boathook and fished about under the stem to see if the line was still there, but it had gone, presumably swept away down stream as soon as it was free.

The rest of the day has been very quiet, raining on and off and with sundry boats travelling past being handled with greater or lesser degrees of skill.

Tomorrow we'll head on up through Fradley (another very early start, methinks) and plan to tie near Kings Bromley marina for the night.

Going for a Burton

14th July

Sorry, couldn't resist it, feeble though it is. Blame it on the lack of sleep. I'd forgotten just how noisy Willington can be overnight if there's a lot of freight traffic on the move on the railway, and there was a lot of freight traffic. I suppose we should be glad that the recession hasn't bitten so deeply that there's still some movement, but on a hot sticky night it was a bit hard. On our way this morning, we noticed much quieter moorings out in the country, especially near Bridge 25, so we may well use those next time.

Never mind, today was mostly fine, though we've had the odd shower this afternoon, and after watering, we chugged cheerfully enough through the odd places on the border between Derbyshire and Staffs. It always seems strange to think that when you cross the River Dove, you are entering the West Midlands, but there you go.

We got to Shobnall before ten, and popped into the chandlery to get some oil and a couple of filters ready for the 7,000 hours service (at which we are changing the fuel filter as well as doing the usual oil stuff.) I asked about getting a replacement drive belt for the engine alternator, but even after nipping back to the boat to check the code number, they didn't have one.

No matter, they were very happy to order one for me, so we'll pick it up next time we're in Burton.

Then I brewed a cup of coffee whilst Sheila steered the short run to the Morrison's mooring, and having drunk it, we went to the supermarket to top up the stores. This did mean we succumbed to the temptation to buy a couple of their excellent pasties, as well as a beautiful loaf of bread.

During the lunch break we took a call from Elanor, and offered to stay where we were for the night if she wanted to pop in and see us. No, she said, she wanted to get in with housework tonight, so didn't want the distraction of visiting us.

On that basis, we set off for the Branston Water Park mooring, which is quieter, but less convenient for Elanor. There was a good bit of traffic around now, and we followed a boat up Branston Lock, and were followed in our turn. On the approach to the mooring, in came a text message from Elanor - could she change her mind?

Hey ho, yes of course she can, she'll just have to find us where we've tied on the newly refurbished moorings before the bridge and pub.

A brief excursion found another geocache, then we've hung about on the boat for the rest of the time. Tomorrow we'll go on to Alrewas, I guess.

To Horninglow and back

13th & 14th March

Sheila wanted a prompt start yesterday, so we set the heating to come on at 7 and shortly after 8 I was ready to pop out to get a paper before we left. I found that a sore ankle which had been troubling me a bit after my walk the day before was now seriously painful, so it took a while to hobble to the shop and back.

We finally got away at half eight and boated down Alrewas, Wychnor and Barton Turn locks in fine style. Whilst we were watering below Barton, a BW tug and hopper came through and set off ahead of us – we'd seen the crew getting ready to take her from above the lock as we went down. The crew-cabbed 4x4 pulled up, the guys got out and two of them had a contemplative cup of coffee whilst the third opened up and started the tug.

Down Tatenhill we went behind them, but they stopped at Branston Water Park, so we got down Branston Lock ahead of them. It became apparent that whilst one steered the tug and hopper, the other two were riding from lock to lock in the 4x4. Chatting to them, we learnt that there was a tree down near Horninglow, and they were on their way to cut it up.

This raises the question, why did it need three of them to lock the boats? Why not have two guys on the boats, and leave the third to drive the vehicle direct to the site? No doubt there's some Elfin Safety reason, but it's a bit of a puzzler.

We stopped at the Morrison's mooring on the outskirts of Burton just before lunchtime. Sheila went off to buy bread, so as to save my aching ankle, and whilst she was gone, the BW crew arrived, moored nearby and took their lunch break. At this rate, it was going to take them all day to move a boat from Barton Turn to Horninglow.

In the afternoon we had another wood cutting session, then settled to a quiet end of the day.

This morning was calm, though a bit grey, but nonetheless a pleasant change from the storms of the past week. We got away by nine, and went straight down to Horninglow, where I had my usual struggle to wind Sanity and reverse her onto the sanitary station mooring. I forget every time that there's not really room to do it at the obvious end of the moorings there, and you have to wind at the first bit you come to and then reverse down and round onto the service mooring.

However, thanks to Sheila's hauling on the bow line from the towpath we got there in the end, and whilst I set up the pump out gear, Sheila went off into what she subsequently described as darkest Horninglow, eventually returning with a newspaper. She commented that you can tell you are not in the posh end of town when every other advert on the roadside is for some new drug that helps people cope with the after effects of smoking skunk cannabis.

Pump out completed, we set off back, stopping again at Shobnall to go into the chandlery there. This proved to be a good move – not only did I get some of the approved oil for the Beta, but they also had the new First Mates Guide to Birmingham and surrounding canals, and they ordered the light switches I've been looking for. They were quite happy to keep them for us until we get back to Burton after Easter.

We stopped at Branston Water Park to eat lunch, then decided that since the weather was now very pleasant, we'd go all the way on to Alrewas today.

Barton Turns Marina was busy with Shakespeare Classic Line boats setting off – next week is the start of the Easter holiday, of course. At Alrewas, there were only four boats tied between the water point and the lock, where there's room for five, but unfortunately Montmorency and Sunbeam had moored with gaps between them such that there was no way we could get Sanity in as well.

So we watered, muttering a bit, and then came on to tie outside the bowling green. I nipped into the village on my much improved feet and bought some stuff at the butchers, including pasties to have with chips from the chip shop tonight. (This is decadence by our standards.)

Elanor looked in on her way back from work – she too is looking and feeling much better. We're planning a social evening with Will Chapman and Jane Howarth tomorrow, and Elanor has decided to join us, so should be a good laugh all round – watch this space!