Day 7 – Tuesday 4^th September. A record day today, we covered all of twelve miles!

Mind you, it meant passing many watering holes, especially those in the heart of the brewing capital of Burton on Trent,

home of Marston’s Pedigree and other famous brews.

The day started off overcast and chilly and we were also a little concerned since it looks as if the thermostat on the fridge is playing up. We contacted a couple of places to see if they could help but were advised that we really needed an engineer. The problem is that when you’re on the move and you don’t know the postcode of where you may end up, and don’t want to hang around for an appointment, and then don’t want to then hang around for spares – well, you get the picture. So, for the moment we are being the thermostat, turning the fridge on and off to maintain a temperature somewhere around 5°C and not –2°C which we achieved the other day. Thought the fridge was frosting up quickly.

Anyway, our journey today started off by passing through Burton on Trent. I managed some fancy reversing so that we could fill up with water, etc. Now, reversing on a narrowboat is not that easy as you haven’t got much steering ability. Unlike a car, you’re not dealing with a solid road beneath you, you’re floating on water. When going backwards, the tiller has almost no effect and the propeller (basically designed to push a boat forward) is now acting like a giant paddle trying to pull the boat sideways. So you go back a bit and then straighten up by going forward a bit and then back a bit more and so on. As long as you go back further than you go forward, you’re OK. In reality you try not to go forward at all but it doesn’t always work out like the book says. As we drifted through Burton the smell of hops came wafting across the canal – and that was the closest I came to Burton Ales today! We even passed another favourite pub of ours The Bridge Inn which provides wonderful Italian food.

But we were happy to push along and chicken wings and cup-a-soup filled us up. The scenery today was a mixture of rolling hills and industrial buildings.

We passed large warehouse facilities, giant builders’ merchants and a plant that produced tons of sand, ballast and concrete. This followed by water meadows, ducks, swans and afternoon sunshine. What more could you want? Well, a working fridge would help! We ended up the day in Alrewas at about 5:00pm nabbing probably the last mooring available. Then it was out with the Brasso to start cleaning anything that should gleam but didn’t. Supper was one of our favourites, sausages in cider – yummee!

Alrewas, in ancient documents was written as Allerwas or Alderwasse, which comes from aldr – alder, and waesse – marsh. There has probably been a settlement here from prehistoric times. There must have been an established community here in 822AD as the Bishop of Lichfield instituted a Prebend here. This means that the revenue from the manor of Alrewas went to support a member of the Cathedral Chapter, who would appoint a vicar to attend the Christian community.