Day 9 – Thursday 6^th September. It’s my birthday – now I know why Brigid wouldn’t let me buy any sweets the other day – I’ve got Thornton’s everywhere! Aren’t I the lucky one!? Also got a couple of CDs so we can blast our way up the canal with wall to wall music. Somehow, I don’t think so. Once again a day of non-stop sunshine. Summer’s here at last! Brigid took a turn at the locks today but every time I turned round, someone else was doing all the gates!

We managed to stop at lunchtime

and have a birthday dinner of cold sausage, cold chicken, tomatoes and nectarines.

We don’t usually manage to stop for lunch because we usually have to get somewhere specific to make sure that we can get the boat back in time for the end of a holiday. Wow, we don’t have to worry about getting back – well, not just yet. During lunch we were stared at by a small herd of long horned cattle. They were most impressive.

Pottered on in the afternoon to end up at Stone where there are four new pubs to explore. Will another favourite be forthcoming, I wonder. If it has Wi-Fi it will be!

Just as an addendum, no Wi-Fi found but we did discover a wonderful Italian restaurant, La Dolce Vita, right on the lock side. We splashed out on a splendid birthday meal and would recommend them to anyone in the area. We were chatting to the owner who retired some years ago but after six months needed something to do. So, he bought the restaurant, employed some of his former staff from the pub trade, sent his chefs over to Italy to learn how to really cook Italian food and hasn’t looked back since. That was over ten years ago. I stopped listening at that point as I don’t want Brigid getting too many bright ideas about my retirement – let me have my six months first – please! When we got back to the boat we realised that we hadn’t been charged for a splendid bottle of wine. So, back we went. When he saw us the poor chap’s face fell a mile and he rushed across asking what was wrong as he thought we’d returned with a complaint. Needless to say, he was quite surprised when we said that we had come back to pay him even more money! He was also quite relieved as it was a good bottle of wine – he did suggest that we could have kept quiet about it – but that’s not our way – especially when it was a special birthday meal.