We heard noise on the roof in the morning, and assumed it was branches from the trees overhead falling in the aftermath of Storm Hector.  We opened up the back hatch to find the back of the boat covered in duck shit – blimey does that stuff stick when it dries!  We removed what we could, and cast off about 9.30

It was a chilly morning, as seems to be the case most days so far.  It soon warms up with Toby starting off in jeans, then lightweight trousers and then shorts…all in one day!

A quick stop at Anglo Welsh and a pump out, I’m always slightly embarrassed at having someone else dealing with our waste, but it never seems to bother the marina staff.  Then over the two aqueducts, the first one is fairly short, the second one is called Edstone Aqueduct and is 475ft long and 28ft high.  It was surprisingly windy as it’s quite exposed,

It wasn’t long before we were approaching the 11 locks of the Wilmcote flight.  It was almost lunchtime and we had to make the decision either to stop and risk the boat behind catching us up and having to set the locks, or to crack on.  We decided to crack on and had a piece of mum’s chocolate cake to keep us going.

It worked in our favour, with most of the locks set for us, we passed through the last lock and moored up just after 2pm.

Toby pipes up that he wants to wash the boat.  I reluctantly agree to clean the inside, and Toby washes the outside – he managed the roof and the towpath side, to many compliments by the numerous passers by. Toby’s reward – a big glass of pimms, chicken curry followed by bananas and custard.