Velcro

Erin Mae's pram hood – the cover over the cruiser stern – was made by Wilson's in 2013. Tom, who sold it to us, was a salesman par excellence, enthusiastic, keen to listen to what we wanted, and willing to throw in various extras on the grounds that our first appointment with them occurred while we were moored outside their front door. Among those extras were the "curtains" – flaps of PVC covering the transparent sections, and fastened down with velcro.

Alas, the ravages of time and weather took their toll, and the velcro no longer secured the windows as once it did. In the words of Keith Wilson when I rang him this week to talk about our plight, they had become "ineffective". But, could he fix it? Yes, he could! There are no doubt people nearer who could have done the job, but we have reason to trust him. Yesterday we drove down to Kinver with the hood in the car, and in a couple of hours he had replaced all the "hook" pieces.

Apparently the loop pieces don't deteriorate – otherwise it would have cost us twice as much. We're very happy with the result, and the cover is back in place keeping the sun off the stern – in the current weather it's infinitely preferable to do maintenance work in the shade.

While Keith was toiling away, we paid a visit to the Kinver Rock Houses.

(photo courtesy of the National Trust)

They are caves in the sandstone which had provided a home to a monastic community, but were later converted to family dwellings, and still in use as such in the 1930s. Now they are owned by the National Trust. We had inspected them thoroughly in 2013, so yesterday's visit was chiefly about relaxing in the shade in an interesting place with a cup of coffee. It was a good day!