Some folk have it in spades, unfortunately I don’t…more to follow. We cast off and motored a few hundred metres to Waitrose and picked up a paper and some strawberries for my smoothies. Toby baked the white sourdough loaf, having left out the wholemeal flour so it was quite a treat for lunch.
It wasn’t long before we reached our first lock. We were going up today, and it was lock five before we saw another boater on the move. The centre line wasn’t long enough with these deep locks, we ended up tying the stern rope and the centre rope together.
Slow progress through some sections with miles and miles of moored boats.
We caught up rather quickly with a hire boater who was going very slowly, we were on tickover for quite some time (testing of patience #1). He must have thought he was cool using his backside to steer, I can tell you, I had other ideas where to stick that tiller!
We reached Iron lock, at first we thought there must be a line of moored boats, we then realised they were all queuing for the lock (testing of patience #2). It took 90 mins before it was our turn
I was quite taken with the farmer scooping up his bales of hay and loading them on the trailer.
We reached the staircase and the gates opened so in we went, I then saw two boats at the top and questioned that at least one of us needs to reverse. The vlockie said that’s fine and closed the gates. We met in the middle with one boat going the other side of Oliver, we then went forward and the other boat followed.
Our longest cruising day this trip with engines off at 5pm, it was good to make use of the fine weather, it looks like we’re in for a wet week.
The ‘slow moorings’ were we think “The Golden Nook Moorings”. If so it’s where we moored when we lived in Chester. In those days they were about half the length! Is The Shady Oak pub (an hour after the moorings) still going? We often visited for an evening cruise and a pint. The food was pretty good as well.
Jane was also in Birmingham on Friday – shopping and meeting a friend for lunch.