I managed to stay on the mooring for over a week after our return from Devon before getting itchy feet. Last Thursday we slipped our mooring and drifted off down the Coventry Canal.
We stopped at Hopwas. This is a little gem of a place. The village is well blessed with pubs by the canal, one being ‘The Tame Otter’. This is not a cheap place to visit but the food is excellent and the surroundings very convivial. But what Bonny and I really love about this area is the forested hill between the village and our preferred mooring point by the fields. It is actually part of the Willington army firing range, with a myriad of paths, hollows and dead ends and it is also a paradise for squirrels! There are lights and signs to warn when firing is actually happening but I have never seen them activated.
It is quite an ancient woodland…
There are no roads here and so Bonny gets to run wild in the woods and I get to worry whether I will ever see her again as the squirrels lead her ever deeper into the woods in a relay race! But so far she has managed to find me again and her joy is a wonder to behold. When we return from our walk she collapses for a while…
or watches for any stray wildlife passing the boat…
The River Tame passes by our mooring and has topped its banks in the recent rain, flooding the fields – again. Fortunately the harvest is over.
I have also come away to do some thinking. It is not pleasant on the mooring at present, for reasons I have mentioned in the past. I am also feeling that I need to make some decisions about my immediate future. I am still leaning towards working through the spring and summer and having autumn and winter off. It occurred to me that I could perhaps find some work somewhere on the canal network – for a hire firm or boatyard or marina and take my boat up to wherever that work was. It would give me a break from the domestics on the mooring and I would have greater scope to find work. I might even give my cv to CaRT (formally BW) as I wouldn’t mind being a seasonal lock keeper or any other job on the canal for that matter. Whether they would employ a 50 something female is another matter!
If the situation on the mooring gets any worse I would reluctantly consider leaving the area altogether and finding somewhere else to moor. I’m not there yet, although just before I came away Mr Angry’s partner’s dog jumped all over Bonny on two occasions which upset me. It’s not an aggressive dog but very solid and seems intent on dominating Bonny by squashing her. Bonny, not being at all dominant just lies there being squashed but it scares her. On both these occasions I had to lift Bon up until the woman came and fetched the dog – with no apologies either time. I can cope with being bullied but I won’t put up with Bonny suffering the same!
Still, it all seems unimportant once we are cruising, so perhaps I just need to do a lot of that!
5 comments:
What a load of rubbish and a pack of lies! You forget to mention you have allways let your dog play with what you call solid dog now it does not suit it's a problem! As for people having no manners that's a lair too! Some of us don't go around swearing in front of kids and OAP's THis is good one for you, ' practice what you preach' and by the way as for every thing else you have blogged don't you think people must thing what have you done to start the fire?bets blog will not stay on long will it you just wantt to be seen as the victI'm! Sad very sad!
And by the way there is two sides to every story why don't you tell everyone how you started the problems on your mooring, but then you could not cope with that could you?
Leave us alone and get on with your sad life!
Is there any room for some peacemaking here....? Being the boat buffer if I can help find some common ground or just facilitate some discussion to ease the bad feeling I'll gladly do so, I might even get my hand in my pocket and buy some beer to talk it over with?
Nev Waterlily
Thanks Nev, for your offer of peacemaker! But with respect I feel you really don't know what that women is about, so with sounding bitter, and lowing my self to her level, I would rather leave it that!
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