Week 3

19:45 23/06/2010 day of R & R

19:38 22/06/2010 11 miles 2 locks
Prompt start in the sun, with a good run up through Handsacre and Armitage (all your bathroom china made here) and on to Rugeley to shop, via 4 young men paddling surf boards 'for charity', they don't appear to know how heavy a narrowboat is! Stocked up at Morrison's for the next few days, bizarely the moorings were empty at lunchtime, still lots of working boats moving south for the Braunston show. The move south explains the emptiness of Tixall, normally this has a small cluster of working boats, but today none. There is one small sunk boat, apparently the owner 'was taken away by the police' !

20:27 21/06/2010 8.88 miles 3 locks and a swing bridge.
Glorious day - but very busy boats everywhere which made the first half of the day very slow and frustrating. Mad Dogs, Englishmen, and Boaters go out in the Midday Sun ! Said goodbye to Chris and Helen as they turned around to return to their mooring up the Ashby, sorry to see them go. Fradley Junction was busy but with some moorings apart from the water point which was two deep. Probably CanalTime boats moored for the day. Not much traffic around the corner, just enough to help us through the tree locks and we headed on up to Kings Bromley and a lovely mooring under the trees, a cold beer was very welcome.

19:53 20/06/2010 11 miles 2 locks
Bright start to the day although it took a while to warm up, the canal winds around Tamworth, to Glascote locks where there was a short queue (4 boats), lucky for us we were not coming the other way as by the time we reached the bottom of the locks there were at least 12 boats waiting to come up, some of them might still be there now! We watered at Fazeley Junction (for Birmingham), we carried on north to Hopwas and found a Chris sunning himself at a nice country mooring. Tomorrow Chris and Helen turn back for home,so we ended the day with a joint BBQ.

17:54 19/06/2010 5 miles 11 locks (Atherstone)
Well back to locks with a vengeance today, the 11 at Atherstone, at least it didn't rain this year. The guide book describes them as extremely attractive and varied. That is, varied in the time they take to fill, slow or very slow!Around three hours top to bottom about par for the flight, the sun never appeared and the wind cooled us down, we moored in another favorite site away from the trains before Polesworth. Too cold for a BBQ, although the sun has now appeared to warm the evening up.