Last night was a bit of a fishing disaster for Ken, bless. He got all his gear sorted, put in his ground bait and after he thought there would be no more boat traffic he started fishing. When moored at the top or bottom of a large flight of locks such as we were you can be fairly certain that no one will go past after about 7 pm because they aren’t going to complete them before 10 o’clock at night. Similarly we think people would want to have finished them by this time.
So there he was, fishing away safely, or so he thought, when a boat moored on the private moorings down the canal started his engine at 8-30pm. Bit late we thought but didn’t take much notice until the sound got nearer and nearer . This chap was reversing down the canal towards us. Ken reeled his rods in muttering away.
Behind us there was a water point so we thought he must have been waiting for the traffic to die down before making his manouvre to fill up. His boat seemed to be weaving about rather erratically and we thought he was going to pull in in front of us instead.
Then he came along side us and his engine conked out. There was a girl on the front of the boat (in her pyjamas and dressing gown) trying to fend off from ours. Ken stuck his head out of the hatch and discovered that the chap had got a large piece of wood jammed in his rudder and had lost all steering control!
Anyway he eventually got going again and went to the tap. Then of course he had to come back again later so Ken gave the fishing up as a bad job. He was doubly pissed off because the night before he had got everything ready when about 6-30 pm a boat came down the Saltisford Arm and breasted up to us so he couldn’t fish then either!
Anyway, what have we done today? Well, not much is the short answer to that question. We have only travelled about 3.5 miles and NO locks (yay!) and are moored at Tom O’ the Wood moorings at Bridge 63, about half a mile from Kingswood Junction. It was really chilly and quite breezy this morning and by the time we got here we didn’t fancy doing the locks.
We moored up, had a sandwich and then went for a walk down the canal. We went to the junction, the village and back taking in 3 pubs. Yes I did say 3 pubs. The first one, The Boot Inn at Lapworth, was a lovely pub but the beer wasn’t really to our taste.We sat outside as we had got warm walking there. The garden was very impressive with loads seating on the grass, patio heaters and comfy furniture on the terrace and a large teepee, not sure what that was about though!
Next we went to the village, got a paper and went in The Navigation. Not a bad pub but the beer would have been better employed on chips! We couldn’t be bothered to complain as the bar was cluttered with a group of locals, the kind who like to stand at the bar even if there are people trying to get served.
We sat outside here as well as we had got warm again walking. There is a very nice canalside garden and patio here although it’s not as grand as The Boot. Next thing three of the aforementioned locals came out, one for a real fag, one for a pretend fag and the other so he wasn’t left alone in the bar! They were running on the biggest load of crap we had ever heard so we were glad to finish the crappy beer and go.
On the way back we had to nearly pass The Tom O’ The Wood so we thought we may as well have a look in there as well. This is also a very nice pub but unfortunately the insidious Doombar was on offer here and we just don’t like it so we had a lager.
We sat inside this time and got chatting to a lovely couple with their two dogs. Their lunch looked ok but we perused the menu with a view to possibly going back for a meal tonight but there was far too much garlic involved for our liking so we decided to give it a miss. Actually this was a good decision as it is now pissing with rain and we couldn’t be bothered to go out again anyway.
Tomorrow we will do the Lapworth Locks we were supposed to be doing today.
