NB Bonjour: More toilet talk…

Tuesday 26^th July; Atherstone flight to Pooley Woods

It’s fairly quiet where we were, with only the railway across the fields and the odd car. We spent the morning getting on with some jobs, mostly hauling the mattress off the bed and having a good poke around behind the pump-out tank. On our first trip we had only had a quick look and I thought I could see the carpet off-cuts we were hoping to find. But the first thing we noticed today was a bit of a pong and a nasty little pool of liquid just below where the pipes went up to the pump-out access.

Dave couldn’t tell where it had come from as it had already partially dried. Was it a result of the over-full situation we had, or does it always leak when pumped out? Or was it a leak from the carbon filter, which Dave noted should have been replaced some time ago? Anyway he donned a pair of latex gloves and got on with clearing it up, stout fellow! We hauled the spare carpet out, and Dave made a note of all the connections etc down there. He then worked out that the tank full indicator hadn’t come on because its switch on the electric panel was off (doh). It must be one of the two labelled 'unused'.... We will keep both switches on, and when the 'tank full' light DOES come on we’ll label the appropriate switch. We have bought a Porta-Potti anyway in case of future need so it won’t be too inconvenient if we are miles from a pump-out!

Before we put the mattress back, the next job was to cut the spare carpet to size for the back steps (to replace the old bits of carpet we had brought from home), and to cover the bow and stern lockers. The bed base provides a handy workbench!

Now that Meg is getting on a bit she is getting more cautious of anything where her claws might slip, so the bow locker mats are so she can confidently jump on and off, and the stern locker one for her to be able to jump up and sit without skidding.

You may be wondering what I was doing while all this was going on. Not a lot, to be honest – I’ve had quite a nasty chest infection and it’s taking a long time to get over it – the pharmacist I saw in Atherstone said it could be another 10 days (the one in Burton Hastings insisted it was hay fever …..). Meg and I just went for a shortish walk down the flight. On the next long pound was a boat with a collie dog and a lot of plants – fancy cruising with two rose bushes on the stern deck! They are much too tall to put inside while cruising. The bow is crammed with plants too.

Roses but not castles

We had lunch before carrying on towards Polesworth, and we went down the remaining 4 locks - very slowly! We were just making ready to leave when 2 boats came by, with a couple coming up too, then once we were down the first pair of locks and nearing the end of the long pound above the bottom two there was a bit of unseemly haste about 100 yards ahead and a boat pulled out in front of us. It turned out to be a single-hander, and he had probably just been waiting for a boat to come out of the lock. Anyway I helped him down, and then we passed boats coming up so it was an easy descent.

Grendon Dock didn’t have as many lovely old boats as usual, but there was this – is it beyond saving now?

We pulled in briefly to dispose of rubbish at Bradley Green, then pottered on through Polesworth. We didn’t stop in Polesworth itself, it's too crowded for us. Instead we went on under the motorway bridge (standing traffic in one direction) to the woods of the Pooley nature reserve, created on the old spoil heaps from the colliery. Under the bridge are two stencils illustrating the two forms of support essential for the miners.