It has been a lovely day weather wise today with wall to wall sunshine. However there was still a nagging chill to the breeze. A breeze which got up considerably about lunchtime and caused us a bit of a squeaky bum moment!
More of that later. This morning we got off to a good start again, despite Ken seeing one magpie. I said, this time of year you always see one magpie at a time because the other one is on the nest so you have to count one as two!
Anyway, we travelled 5 miles from Whittington to Fazeley where we were hoping to get on the waterpoint and top up as I had done some washing on the way. As we approached Fazeley we could see there was a boat on the water point but they left just as we arrived so that was lucky.
We soon topped up the tank and were on our way to Glascote Locks. There are only 2 locks here and although there was a boat going up in front of us they didn’t take long to do. We then needed to go to a shop for a paper and we discussed the options based on the shops we knew the whereabouts of in the vicinity.
Just at the top of Glascote locks there was a pub called The Anchor. We took George there once on our first trip round this way. It wasn’t much of a pub as I recall so we never went there again. As we approached it we noticed that there was not a pub there any more but a Coop. How fortuitous was that?
I’m not usually pleased to see a pub replaced by a shop but in this case I made an exception. Ken held the boat on the moorings while I popped in for a paper, job done!
Then it was a straight run of another 2 miles to Alvecote where we moored opposite the marina. Actually we are in the winding hole but it is so big that you are allowed to moor there. In any case we got forced forwards by a bloke who arrived just before us going the opposite way. We were going to go in front of him but he closed the gap on another moored boat so we went in behind.
And as we pulled in behind him he started to reverse his boat along the moorings. Ken asked him how far back he was going, he said as far as possible so we went forwards and ended up in the winding hole.
We finished mooring up and headed across the canal to the Samuel Barlow for a pint of Old Speckled Hen and a sit in the sun. Very nice too. However, while we were sitting there a boat paired with a butty came past and were going to wind (turn) opposite our boat.
By this time the wind had got up quite a bit and the girl driving the boats found it difficult to get round. She aborted her first attempt after getting blown onto our boat and the chap with her having to fend off from our boat. She reversed back past where we were sitting and we asked her if she wanted us to move our boat. She said there was plenty of room but thanks for the offer.
We watched as she had another go at it and the chap had to fend off from our boat again but this time she got them round. No damage to our paintwork either!
Tomorrow we are either going to do Atherstone Locks ………… or we’re not!
