Wet stuff.

0 Locks, 2 miles, now moored at Rugby.
Total of 272 locks and 333 miles and 16 Tunnels since 5th Nov 2006

Surprise, surprise it was raining this morning and had been most of the night. With the rear deck cover on it meant that I was able to get into the engine hole and remove the Mikuni heating unit without getting soaking wet. It’s now ready to be couriered to the manufacturer for overhaul tomorrow.
Clifton Cruisers engineer came and had a look and listen at the engine and thought there was not too much wrong with it and will make some phone enquiries tomorrow as to what options are available without breaking the bank.
Another visitor this morning was a follower of our blog who rang us yesterday just after we left Braunston. David Elcome is also a caravanning fanatic like ourselves and was staying at Braunston in his caravan. We had an interesting chat about differences in caravanning in the UK and NZ. Among topics discussed was free to air TV which we will investigate further.
Before lunch Paul from Clifton cruisers came to say that the boat that normally moors where we were was returning and we could breast up with him. However we decided that as we needed to visit Tesco’s and Homebase we would move up to Brownsover by the park and return to CC tomorrow. I got a bit stroppy at Homebase because they had the BBQ that we had been looking for with a sign on it saying “Available today” As we could not see any packaged up in the display we asked if they had some out in the stockroom. After a lengthy wait we were told there was none available. I remonstrated with the sales assistant about the Buy Today sign but got nowhere. Next stop was the manager who was no more helpful than her junior staff member. When I said I would take the demo model they said that they couldn’t or wouldn’t sell it to me but they could order one in for me. How long would that take? Three weeks, by which time we will be on the Thames so that’s no help. Why do they advertise “Available today” if there isn’t any? The least they could do is remove the sign or is that too much like hard work. Customer service, poppy cock, they don’t know the meaning of the words.

Rugby railway stations old bay platforms.
There were many of these but only 4 tracks remain.
The missing tracks were generally used for train or carriage storage.