Washing day

(Boat Flamingo - posted by Cath)

We got going rather later than hoped this morning, then moored up a couple of miles later, shortly after Glascote Locks. I wanted to walk to a shopping centre in Tamworth to buy a few things that I thought we needed. 

Between Glascote and our stop at Fazeley Junction to go shopping.

As Alan and I set off to walk, I looked at the sky and decided to take my waterproof coat. I was surprised to find out how heavy it was, so looked in the pocket to see what I had managed to leave in there. What I found was a puddle. In the pocket. Enough water that I could go and pour it out onto the towpath. I was seriously impressed. The water had got there nearly a day earlier, and was still inside the pocket. I bought the coat in an end of season sale a year or so back, but I'll be on the lookout for other Brasher coats in future if even the pockets will hold a puddle overnight.

Then up to Ventura shopping centre, where we bought some more waterproof gloves, another knee brace for my dodgy knee (injured in a boating accident three or four years ago - the physio has said nothing more can be done for it, but I was encouraged to keep dancing, and run if possible). Having bought various things it was a toss-up between going back to the boat and trying to get ahead of schedule, or a coffee in Costa.

I'm on holiday, so the coffee won.

After lunch I started to sort out the laundry. We've only been on the trip since Tuesday, but if we let washing build up the problem is how to get it all dry - particularly in wet weather, so I took advantage of a longish lock-less stretch of canal to do the washing.

Laundry facilities on Flamingo

When we bought Flamingo there was a small automatic washing machine on board, but at the time Flamingo was connected permanently to the mains. The space for the automatic washing machine now has a calorifier (hot water tank) and a cupboard, and we have a cheap plastic twin-tub to do the washing. We had a smaller version of this on our old boat, Chalice, and despite being known by us as the 'Fisher-Price washing machine' it cleaned the clothes far better than our expensive automatic washing machine at home. The 'toy' washing machine fits neatly onto the 'seat' at the end of the small bath. It is a bit of a faff to do the washing, transferring wet clothing from washing to spinning, but we can cope with that when we don't need someone to do the locks. I felt very virtuous when I had finished and took Alan a cup of tea and took over steering for a few miles.

Lots of historic boats passed, but only Starling & Ethel caught the camera

As we approached Fradley we had a debate about where we might be able to moor. We've never been able to moor Flamingo on the approach to the junction, as all of the visitors' moorings have been full. However, this time there were only about four boats there in total - and we got the prime mooring spot, as near to the junction as possible. We filled up the water tank after the washing, ate dinner, and then took the dogs for a walk up to Shadehouse Lock, where we found our friends Richard and Ruth, who operate the fuel boats Mountbatten and Jellicoe. Nice to see them, and we arranged for some coal and gas in the morning.

Tomorrow we have to be at least as far as Great Haywood Junction, but we'll try to get a few more miles done to get a bit of contingency time. 

Alvecote to Fradley Junction
Miles 14.7, Locks: 2
Total Miles 66.2, Total Locks: 30