Lapworth (and the lost tomatoes)



Monday was a bit cooler than of late, so much better for walking and for Buddies.  As we had bridge in the evening I took Karen to work first thing.  It was a pleasant change to be much closer to her office and to be able to use country roads rather than the motorways of the last couple of months.  The journey only takes 20 minutes from here as it is just under nine miles.

During the morning, Buddy and I walked down to the centre of Lapworth which is about two miles away.  I took one of our trolleys and seven empty 2 litre plastic bottles to fill them up at the water point.  We use canal water when watering the plants but use drinking water for the ‘edible’ plants like tomatoes, chillies, peppers and herbs.  As we have to be careful how we use water we tend to keep containers filled an addition to the tank.  I forgot that it is downhill all the way to the water point; we are currently moored at the top of the long Lapworth flight. That meant it was uphill all the way back, and of course I had a laden trolley.

There were a lot of boats on the move down the locks and I met a few people we knew so I was able to have a rest and a chat whilst they were locking.  Wendy and her husband who we met in Stoke Prior were going down the flight in their boat followed by his sister and her husband on their boat.  We were talking about conserving water and they told me a story they had heard.  Their permanent mooring is at a hire boat base and they are good friends with the guys who work there who told them the story originally.  A family were out on a hire boat and got in touch with the boat yard as they had run out of water and couldn’t get any water to go into the water tank.  They had found the hose and put one end in the water tank and connected the other end to the tap in the galley – but they couldn’t work out why no water was coming out of the tap!

Every day we take the tomato plants etc. out of the cratch and put them on the roof so they are in the sun.  It’s got trickier and trickier as the plants have got bigger and I finally dropped one on Monday.  Fortunately, the main stem didn’t break and I only lost a few tomatoes.

Even though rain wasn’t forecast we kept getting showers and I had to bring the washing in three times before it dried.  Several passing boaters commented that it was raining because I had the washing hanging out.

Sitting here, writing the blog, this Tuesday morning, I see the weather seems to have turned as it is very grey and heavy rain is forecast later.  Looks like I’ll be doing inside jobs today like getting on with a couple of shelves we need at the top of the wardrobes.

View from the dinette on a grey Tuesday morning



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