While we were enjoying Coventry, Rob from Ortomarine visited the boat and fixed some outstanding issues.  We now have a working tunnel light again.  Sadly we still don’t have a working bow thruster, the replacement joystick has still not arrived – one day.

Turning the heating on by remote control yesterday was a great benefit when we got back to the boat.  Today, the weather has been grey and cold too.  We’ve spent much of the day inside with the heating on.  After lunch we decided to drive a few miles to top the batteries up a bit – the boat hadn’t moved for nearly four days.  We settled on turning back towards Worcester and going as far as the last winding hole before the locks.

In the short trip we met four or five boats and saw at least as many kingfishers.  As the leaves thin out it is becoming easier to see the kingfishers when they perch.  Several times we reached an eye-level perch just as its occupant dropped and skimmed ahead over the water.  In the flat grey light the electric blue is dimmed, the wings are so fast that they disappear during flight.

On the way out, I noted a possible mooring spot near Dunhampstead.  As we returned along that stretch, a kingfisher alighted on the tiller of a moored boat ahead of us – that was the clincher.  By then it was almost sunset anyway, so we saw no more birds, but I’m hoping for kingfisher sightings at breakfast tomorrow.