Away......At Last!

It’s taken us three weeks of waiting, but we are now deeply cocooned within the canal system and enjoying every minute of it. The boat is behaving itself, apart from a little leak under the kitchen sink, that I will look at tomorroww, and we have make fairly good progress. We are currently moored in Alrewas, pronounced “Olrewus” in Staffs. I think we have travelled around 25 miles. See picture of our mooring. And I can report that the sun is shining, the birds are singing and I have the side doors wide open. Earlier though it was quite windy and I a few issues with the wind catching the boat sideways on, but a good day’s cruising up from Burton.

Our mooring at Alrewas, TCW is on the right

The First Mate in action

We spend much of Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday by  Horniglow Basin in Burton-On-Trent. My CAMRA buddies will not be surprised to learn that I insisted on stopping there. Burton in the home of British brewing and the Bass Museum, which closed when it was taken over a dozen years ago by Molson/Coors,  re-opened as the National Brewery Centre a couple of years back and was only a short walk away from our mooring. It was a good tour and well worth the £8 entry fee.

But before we left Trent Lock we had some more visitors. Susie and Rob were up from Southampton.  They are the customers after next, who are having their boat built by Kingfisher. I met them the weekend I moved onto TCW, and we had a very pleasant couple of hours this time, as they explained the cutting edge boat they are planning. Another prospective member of the Kingfisher Owners Club methinks.

While we were hanging around we booked our winter round-the-world tickets at TrailFinders in Nottingham. Our adventures take us first to Thailand at the beginning of November, and then on to Brisbane, Melbourne and then a week in Tasmania, before we move on to New Zealand and spend Christmas with our daughter Erica and her family. We have a number of pals and family scattered around Australia and NZ and it’s been 10 years since we saw them all. At the beginning of February we are meeting Pat’s sister Mo and her husband Garry in Maui in Hawaii for a week or so and then we are flying to Los Angles and driving across country through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, flying back mid March. Kingfisher are looking after TCW while we are away and I am pleased about that, even though it means a journey north from the Kennet and Avon where we will be in September.

Another reason to visit Burton was that I was hopeful of a private consultation with a Physio to look at my left foot. It’s been aching on and off for over 6 weeks now and my pal Geraldine in Finchley has recommended me a couple of practitioners on our route westwards that could give me some guidance as to its cause and treatment. Unfortunately the first time the local lady could see me was this Thursday, and we need to be pressing on a bit, so I have made another appointment with another physio who specialises in this sort of injury a few mile north of Stoke On Trent and I have made that for next Thursday, so we have plenty of time to get there.

Our neighbour at Burton was a white goat who sat on a little rocky platform and bleated at boats as they went past.

Our neighbour at Burton-On-Trent

We have booked a temporary mooring at a marina in Newbury in Berks for the first two weeks in September, so if you haven’t been able to join us by then, we would love to see you for a visit.