Mixing with the big boys

We saw giants today!

One of the zips in our cratch cover lost a couple of teeth a while back, and we finally got round to booking a slot on one of Harris Hood's occasional Repair Days. So today we drove off to Worcester with the cover carefully folded in the back of the car.

The DVD player in our TV stopped working when I dropped it the other day. Hardly surprising really. There's apparently only one TV repair shop in a 20 mile radius, Trafalgar Electronics, and that happens to be in Rugby, so we added that trip to our journey, setting out early to allow for that, and for any traffic problems we might encounter. Our repair slot was at 2:00 pm, and we arrived at 1:00.

Harris Hoods works out of  Upton Marina on the River Severn, and in the marina stood dozens of the big boys. (all photos courtesy of the marina)

OK, so some of these cruisers are small, but the largest were intimidating! They are huge! Narrowboats do feature in a small way here, but they're tucked away safely.

It's a very impressive site, with impressive facilities, including boat sales, servicing, and a chandlery amongst all the others you'd expect to find in any marina.

They also have a pub restaurant, and this is where Grace and I ate while we waited for our cratch cover to be repaired. The young man doing the job had several various covers and canopies lying on the grass outside his workshop when we arrived, but he said ours would only take about half an hour to do - he just had to replace the zip. Nonetheless, we were surprised to get a call from him just as we were preparing to leave the restaurant only minutes after 2:00. He'd finished. Furthermore, he didn't charge a penny. We were very pleasantly surprised.

I'd had another phone call shortly after his. We were still in the restaurant. It was the man at Trafalgar Electronics, saying that that job had been completed, too. That one wasn't free of charge, though. Never mind, it was a lot cheaper than buying a new TV. We collected it on the way back to Kantara.

And the icing on the successful-day cake was the lovely weather. Very warm, with clear, blue skies, though very windy.

OK, almost clear, blue skies!

Now we have to prepare for a visit from Frankie, Andy and Colin next week. It'll be the first time we've had five on board. It's going to be interesting! And fun, too, of course!