Alrewas to Great Haywood
Wednesday 10th April
Well now, I’ve just posted the 2nd blog about our
travels – and travails? – mostly been about our problems with the boat. My
apologies go out to all who have found the content thoroughly boring but,
that’s life on the cut, some good days and some bad, mostly good, I’m happy to
say.
Assuming our recon gearbox turns up today, Andy will pick me
up to go and pay for it. It will then only be a matter of out with the old and
in with the new, an hour or so tomorrow morning, and we should be on our way to
Fradley. In fact, if we can get to Fradley Junction tomorrow, we could spend a
little time in The Swan pub because, down in the cellar on Thursday nights they
run a Folk night. Indeed, if I was more proficient with the ukulele, I could
sit in and enjoy free beer, or so I’ve been told. Now there’s a pleasant
thought.
Thursday 11th April
We waited in all day yesterday in hopes that Andy would call
with news about the gearbox. However, he was quite late getting home, so I have
no doubt he had a bad day. Hopefully he’ll call in on his way out this morning.
There’s nothing worse than sitting around for days on end; it’s been nine days
now; waiting for a job to be done so we can be on the move.
This morning, just to add to our problems, the spark that
ignites the cooker rings has packed up. As far as we know this is fed from the
batteries, so there’s no reason for it to stop working. It may just be a loose
wire but, until it’s sorted I suppose we’re back to the matches.
Other than that piece of bad news, we’re just sitting around
until we can be on the move again, and that can’t come soon enough for us. This
is all very frustrating, especially as we have mail to collect at Great
Haywood, and that’s several days away, even after the gearbox is fitted.
Friday 12th April
Well, assuming the weather is going to be kind to us this
morning, we’ll be on our way to Fradley, but that won’t be until about 10
o/clock, after Wifey goes for the paper and bread.
The weather report is not that good for this weekend; lots
of rain it seems; although it does now seem to be warming up now and not before
time.
Sad to say, another boring day yesterday but at least the
gearbox has now been fitted. All we have to concern ourselves with is the
heater, but we’ll get that serviced at a later date.
Saturday 13th April
We left Alrewas yesterday morning, quite late as it happened
because we had to wait for a delivery of bread to the local butcher’s. Honest
Injun!!
Fradley Junction was only two miles and four locks, which
took just over an hour. Naturally we took a walk around the local park and
bought an ice cream. Well, it would have been rude not to, wouldn’t it? After
all, summer is on the way.
Of course the weather today gives the lie to the above statement,
it’s nothing like summer right now, but we did at least get to Handsacre this
morning without incident and, once we had settled in Wifey put some washing on,
which our new charger objected to most strongly. Now, there’s nothing in the
handbook to say that this box of goodies is unable to cope with a washing
machine. After all, this is simply another piece of electrical equipment that
runs off the batteries. But, within a short space of time, just while the water
was being heated up, off went an alarm. This alarm pointed to the failure of a
sensor, which the book says is a sign that the unit should be returned to
manufacturer for assessment. Wonderful!!
Of course I telephoned Andy, who was not best pleased at
this bad news. Anyway, after turning off the engine, and thus the charger, we
gave it a few minutes to cool down and tried again. This time we had no alarms
going off and the washing was successfully completed.
I did consider phoning Andy again but, knowing that Wifey is
going to do washing again tomorrow morning, I thought I would hold off and see
what happens then. To our combined minds, if the alarm goes off again we will
know that we will have to switch the unit off when carrying that operation out.
If the alarm stays off I can phone Andy again and see what he says. After all,
the unit should have 12 months guarantee, which means, all is not lost if we
keep going but watch for problems.
Meanwhile, we now have rain and we now have a full
complement of moored boats here at Handsacre and, since there’s a rather good
pub just 10 minutes’ walk away, we’ll be staying until Monday morning when
we’ll head for Rugeley.
Sunday 14th April
Yesterday, apart from the problems with the charger, we just
chilled out for the rest of the day. Today however, we are back to our Hairy
Bikers diet, which has been ignored during the past couple of weeks. I don’t
think I have put any more weight on as I can still tighten my belt to the same
notch and, since we don’t plan on weighing ourselves until next Saturday morning,
I won’t know, will I?
I have now changed my morning routine. Whilst at the marina
it was my practice to fiddle around on the laptop, or perhaps do some painting.
Instead I am doing some painting and then going over to ukulele practice. Prior
to leaving Mercia, I had words with Steve, my fellow uke buff and I warned him
to make sure he got in plenty of practice while I’m away as I would be ‘gunning
for him when I get back’. So, if I’m to be any good at all when we get back;
which assumes we don’t actually find an online mooring before then; I’m going
to have to pull my finger out and practice, practice, practice.
So, for the rest of today it will be, more washing for
Wifey, followed by a phone call to Andy as to how the charger has behaved.
Lunchtime will be spent in the pub up the road and the afternoon will be more
chill-out time. I will also be getting stuck in to uke practice, but this time
at a normal volume and tempo. (First thing in the morning I play very soft and
slow, so as not to disturb Wifey’s beauty sleep)
Monday 15th April
After quite a bit of rain yesterday today has dawned bright
and calm, so we’ll be off to Rugeley this morning.
I was out with Rusty yesterday morning, when I noticed that
‘Shiralee’ seemed to be listing slightly to port. This stretch of canal is
curved and the towpath has a slight incline to it, so it may have been an
optical illusion but, just to be on the safe side, we took our pump out of
storage and, lo and behold, out came another gallon of water from the bilge. This
would not be enough to cause a list in the boat and we think it is just a mix
of condensation and whatever was left in the bilge from when we changed the
water pump.
As for the new charger, that seems to be running OK now.
Andy has recommended that we use a cooler wash on the washing machine.
Unfortunately these machines do take a lot of power from the batteries and even
the new charger has difficulty maintaining the charge. But, compared with the
alternator on its own, which drops to about 10 volts while the water is heating
up, this charger doesn’t drop below about 11.5, so that’s an improvement.
Tuesday 16th April
We are now at Brindley Bank, which is about a mile out of
Rugeley and heading for Great Haywood. But, why are we here?
Well, yesterday morning, soon after we had done the shopping
at Morrison’s, Wifey took it into her head to give the outside of the boat a
clean. While she was doing so along came another boater and they started
chatting. This is not an uncommon event and so I didn’t give it any thought.
Anyway, when the guy had gone back to his boat, I stuck my
head out of the hatch and asked what he had said. Apparently a new Macdonalds
has opened and it is so close to the canal that the school kids walk along the
towpath to get to it. Now, that wouldn’t be so bad, even if they can be a bit
noisy, but the late night drinkers also use Macdonald’s and, on their way back
they do like to decorate boats with their rubbish.
So, thanks very much Rugeley Town Council for allowing yet
another fast food outlet to blight our lives.
And that, dear readers, is why we spent the night at
Brindley Bank. No more stopovers at Rugeley for us.
We had quite a bit of rain overnight but, thank goodness, it
has now stopped and is brightening up. So, we’ll be off to Great Haywood where
we won’t be pestered by drunks chucking their rubbish at the boat.
Thursday 18th April
From Brindley Bank on Tuesday morning, we made our way to
Great Haywood and pulled in a couple of hundred yards from the lock, where it’s
quiet and peaceful.
Now, where was I? Just made my early cuppa and spotted a
spider on the wall behind the cooker and now I’m back, having disposed of the
darned thing. No, I didn’t kill it, simply sent it to the outside world. It’s
now crawling around on the grass looking for a new home.
We had intended to stay until this morning and then head for
Weeping Cross on the Staffs and Worc but, with this howling, gale force wind;
which has been with us since yesterday morning and doesn’t look like letting up
any time soon; it looks like we’ll be here for another day.
From this mooring spot it is probably ½ to ¾ mile to the
Anglo-Welsh Hire Boat Company, which resides at the junction and, since we were
getting a bit low on coal, we took a stroll up there and towed a couple of 25Kg
bags back to the boat. Even using their own 4 wheeled barrow this was a pretty
difficult task and one we would not like to have to repeat.
This is one of those spots along the system where it’s
impossible to get any TV and where this new WiFi unit is very slow downloading
stuff. I purchased a bunch of videos about easy finger picking songs for guitar
but, as they only came as a download, I gave up after about 4 of them, the rest
I’ll have to download when we get to Weeping Cross.
Friday 19th April
Well, here we are, still at Great Haywood, and we still have
pretty strong winds this morning. But, no matter, we’ll probably be on our way
this morning. Meanwhile I’d better post as this blog is now getting rather
long.
Happy weekend folks.
Dave, Sheila and Rusty
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