Saturday 27th August
We set off and immediately ran straight into a Bank Holiday traffic jam, 4th in the queue for Sutton stop lock. Progress through would have been faster but for the two 60+ foot boats moored inside the turn outside the Greyhound pub (which we didn’t visit last night due to the persistent rain). They gave very little room for those needing to manoeuvre to ascend the lock. I think words were ‘had’ as the hire boat that seemed only to be there for fishing moved off all in a dither.
When we passed later they were moored up again, just up the Coventry canal, past the 14 day moorings and the rods were out again. The lads sat on picnic chairs on the roof were unhappy about taking their lines in as other boats passed so Brenda warned them about the risk of getting their tackle caught round a propeller – were they bovvered?
We moored up against Grace at the rear of the Rigden villa and went in for tea, cake and catching up. We were also treated to a scary movie that someone had taken of their attempt to enter the Great Ouse.
Then off up the Ashby and our first harvest of the year. The joy of scrumping apples and there is a great tree full of nice cooking apples on the offside at bridge 3A. Within one hour (i.e. 3 miles) they were stewed so think of the food-miles!
As we approached Stoke Golding we found ourselves tagged onto the end of a funerial procession of two cruisers following a very slow narrowboat. By the time we reached Bradfield Bridge the number of boats in the queue had increased and so we pulled over to moor for the night. Intelligence gained on Sunday showed that all three boats at the head of the queue were together and the narrowboat had an engine problem.
We spent an excellent evening on our quiet mooring glued to the television. Serial episodes of Last of the Summer wine' followed by the comedy prom on Beeb2. All in all a day of sunshine and heavy cold showers which required the cape.
Graham
No comments:
Post a Comment