Brewood

Yesterday we arrived in Breewood a lovely large(ish) village outside Wolverhampton. The village is very pretty and all the houses have well kept gardens. I did wonder if they was all an act as the judging for the ‘best kept village’ was between May and July. Even today, Saturday, the village was very peaceful. We bought ourselves a lottery scratch card today and won!! – only £40 which was a far cry from the £40,000 per year per life, however it paid for lunch and another card.

99.9% of the people that we have met along the way have been retired people living full-time on their boats or holiday makers on hire or owned boats. We have not really seen (away from home) full-time live-aboard people of non retirement age. Yesterday evening we went for a walk, where we are moored is surrounded by trees, however, further down it opens up and there are lovely views over fields. As we walked we noticed a group of boats they were clearly true "live-a-board" boats. Seats outside their boats, washing frames, tomato plants replaced flowers, clutter on the roof and BBQ’s - A true boating community enjoying the evening sun. I love this boat, hence taking a photo, I hope the owner did not mind.

We have just come back from an early evening stroll through along the canal, through fields and into the village. The horses in the fields were very interested in Scott’s jumper and he was concerned that they would nibble a hole through it. He wondered if his jumper smelt of apples or something that horses would eat.

I am currently sitting on the front of the boat and can see a fisherman just behind the boat who has just caught a small fish. I am still not sure if I approve of fishing. We have seen fishing lines / poles which are so long they reach to the other end of the canal. The owner of the poles seem to wait to the last second to retract it, almost playing ‘chicken’ with us. I really do not know why they have to leave the line across the canal until the last second – as if a few seconds is actually going to make a difference in catching the fish. About a week ago, we went past 20 or so fishermen, Scott did drive slowly and was thanked by them, as I guess most people do not really bother to slow down.

And now a pleasure boat has just gone past with a number of people waving at me, all very nice, but I did feel that I was an exhibit on display!