Alvechurch

As the title of this post isn’t All Powered Up, AMPS! 150!! BATTERIES!!! AT LONG LAST!!!! you may have guessed already that the text message we awoke to this morning told us that Kris was still off work, therefore we’d not be seeing our boat builders today. We’re starting to wonder if the lithium batteries were a figment of our imagination all along.

The message did however mean that we didn’t need to rapidly get dressed and try to have breakfast before they arrived, so we rolled over and had a few more zz’s instead. The last few days we’ve been cruising much longer hours than we’ve been used to for some months so a day off was allowed, the chaps might be with us tomorrow, so there was no point in moving on from such an ideal place.

Breakfast

Mick set to cooking us a breakfast whilst Tilly made the most of being allowed to come and go.

The forecast for the last few days has suggested that we’d be waking up to days where the temperatures would be starting to rise, so we keep leaving the fire to go out. Today with not much activity going on the boat felt cold, so a new fire was light and we settled down for the day. An episode of Inspector Morse and the next Breaking Bad episode were watched as the weather outside got more and more blustery.

Where is that bakers

A walk down the hill into the village broke up the day. Alvechurch has a couple of butchers, barbers, post office and a bakers, if you can find it! As we approached the cross roads we started to look out for the secret bakers, was it that building or the next? No it’s the one that just looks like a house with a granary bread sticker on the front door. We walked over to have a closer look only to find a sign in the door saying that they had closed in February. We stocked up on milk, bread and lunchy bits from the Co-Op and headed back to Oleanna waiting to hear if Kris was on the mend or not.

Gone for ever!

Tilly’s playground!

Late afternoon a message came through saying that it was unlikely that Finesse would be with us tomorrow, the remainder of the week now wouldn’t be possible. We decided to stay put overnight just in case we woke to a message saying they were on their way, but if not we’ll push off and start our descent down to the Severn.

Today we received two good bits of news. According to C&RT the river is now fully open, so when we reach Worcester we will be able to make it down to Gloucester without hanging around.

Four jars of tastyness

Mysteron Lamb and Veg

The other, I have won some mayonnaise! Our friends at Charlie and Ivy’s (Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil) had a facebook giveaway last Friday. All you had to do was tell them what your favourite Friday night meal was to be in with a chance of winning. That night we were going to have what we I call Mysteron Lamb. This was a recipe I came across when we were in Misterton on the Chesterfield Canal. You roast small potatoes, maybe with some other veg, sear seasoned  lamb steaks in a hot hot pan, pop these on top of the potatoes in the oven for five minutes, then drizzle over some balsamic vinegar and leave to cook for a further five minutes before resting and serving. I suggested that I was going to try doing it with one of their bread dippers, Juniper Lemon and Balsamic. This turned out to be the winner, not sure if Jennie had anything to do with choosing me, certainly the lady who got in touch had no idea that I know them quite well. Have to say using their dipper did make the lamb extra tasty. So we know have a mayonnaise filled summer to look forward to, hopefully with new batteries!

0 locks, 0 miles, 6.50am text, 30 mins extra, 2 cooked breakfasts, S2 Ep3, 1 Morse, 1 lost forever secret bakers, 1 giant bank to play on, 2 stupid diddy woofers, 1 knitter stuck for what to do next, 4 jars of mayo, 0 batteries.

Severn River level at 9am today (at Bewdley a mile upstream from Stourport) 1.283m.