Rain, sun, wind and snow but we're happy

Another sign of spring this morning: courting ducks.  I watched a pair of mallards courting outside the kitchen window whilst drinking my coffee.  Another pair of ducks were looking on as if they were mad.  

After breakfast I fixed two new bridge plaques that we had “earned” to our back doors. Another sign of my "train spotters" attitude: I will only buy plaques for canals and rivers we have been on.  Even more anal, I won't buy a plaque for anything other than a river or canal, e.g. I won't buy a plaque for a site of interest like the "Anderton Boat Lift" or "Inland Port of Shardlow".

There are two canals we have been on that we have not managed to get plaques for.  Having asked around I have found out that they have stopped making the plaques in the UK and are setting up a supply chain from India.  Yet another example of manufacturing that has been transferred out of the UK.

It was really windy and raining so we thought we would walk to Branston rather than cruise there.  Branston is where Branston pickle was invented.  There are large lakes at Branston so we had a walk around one of them.  First time we have seen a dog dip but try as we might we couldn’t get Buddy in.  Karen thought it would be a bit mean to throw him in.

There were a lot of wild fowl in the water that fascinated Buddy of course but I think he was wishing the "Dog dipping" sign had been removed in the first picture here.

 

Just to prove Karen has longer legs than me – she is the one holding the camera.

During the walk the clouds cleared and the sun came out and by the time we were back to the boat it lightly snowed but it didn’t come to anything.

Later in the afternoon we walked into Burton Upon Trent to stock up on the heavy things like wine as we won’t be near supermarkets for three weeks or so now.  We also bought a bunch of daffodils so it would feel like spring on the boat when they come out.

Karen kicked off a pork vindaloo last night so it has been marinating for nearly a day - can't wait to eat it this evening.  The supermarket we went to had a good range of Indian nibbles so we thought we would try the vindaloo mix.  Be warned, this brand is very hot. Karen did have an evil thought that the swans and ducks may like it though, not that we feed the water fowl normally.