Thursday 28th October
Today we have stayed in Alrewas. This morning Ken had yet another fishing session and has now lost the will to live. He has resigned himself to the fact that there just aren’t any fish in here. Either that or they all hide up as soon as they see him!
To be fair it was somewhat chaotic here, near the lock, this morning. ‘Painted Lady’, who always start off early, were leaving just as we were getting up. Then there was a pretty constant stream of boats (including Mick and Cathy) between 8am and 10am so any fish that had gravitated to this part of the canal over night soon buggered off!
We decided to go shopping again and went to Coates, the famous butchers, for some steak. We got a huge piece of rump (some may say I always have had!), eggs, mushrooms and some beef dripping.
Later on we took George to the pub again and as it was not quite so warm today we took him in. He got a couple of pats and then slept most of the time. On the way there we met a couple walking their greyhounds and the chap was from Great Yarmouth. He told Ken where the best fishing spots around here are but I think Ken has given it up as a bad job now!
Also on the way to the pub we spotted some homemade jam for sale outside a cottage and, not being able to decide which one we wanted, bought three jars! Greengage, Damson and Blackberry and Apple. We tried the Greengage on some bread and butter this afternoon – yum!
While we were in the pub we met some people from Bury St Edmunds who knew Bungay, Southwold and Halesworth. We also met a couple who have a narrowboat, ‘Looney Tunes’ (the name of the boat not their mental state!) and got some useful info about doing the Thames, which we may do next year. Including buying a gold licence for the year instead of a visitor’s licence for the Thames so we could hang around with no time restrictions. The chap was a case and told us about a couple of barneys he had had with BW over moorings.
When we got back to the boat Ken spent a, not so, happy hour or so fixing his wardrobe door. The air was quite blue but at least it kept his mind off the lack of fish!
