Driving to Brum via waterways places

On Sunday evening we drove to Birmingham to visit Ally and Ben. We would normally have gone in the 240, in case we had to transport large items. (It would have been useful, as it turned out, for moving a cooker.) But the 240's windscreen wipers stopped working recently, and so we went in the Amazon. And I thought I'd try setting the sat nav for "shorter distance" rather than "faster time". This usually doesn't make any difference to our journey time as I generally don't drive faster than 50 mph anyway. From Norwich (I went straight from work) Mrs. Satnav took us to several points on the inland waterways network. First was Downham Market on the River Great Ouse; then Salter's Lode; Outwell; Wisbech (River Nene), Guyhirn, Whittlesey, Stanground, Oundle; Market Harborough, North Kilworth (Grand Union) ... then we joined the M6 for a couple of junctions, crossing the Oxford Canal; then Coventry, Catherine de Barnes, and Birmingham (near the Worcester and Birmingham Canal.) We passed through some lovely places - it was a pity we couldn't see much of them as it was dark!

Total time 4 hours 15 minutes. It always seems to take that long even using the A11/A14/M6.

The car behaved itself, but when we parked up I saw that the rear number plate was at a crazy angle. One of the self-tapping screws which hold the bracket onto which the number plate is screwed had disappeared. I fixed it the next morning.

We'd come to do various jobs on the house, such as making good the kitchen ceiling after the water incident. But a more urgent task presented itself: while Jan was cleaning the oven the door fell off. Oops. New cooker needed (it had some rust holes as well). We bought one from Wickes and just managed to get it into Ally's Fiesta. I have spent most of today installing it.