Tuesday 18^th September. Those April showers that come your way – don’t help much when it’s September and you’re trying to negotiate 25 locks. Today we have travelled all of 7½ miles in 7 hours which works out at approx. 1 mile per hour. Talk about life in the slow lane. Mind you, we met some interesting people and were able to chat about … the weather … the rain … the weather!

Part way through our journey we came to a couple of locks that were fairly close together only to find that the top lock was against us with a crew member from a boat coming through the bottom lock stating that they had a 62 foot boat and they needed to operate both locks at the same time as you couldn’t pass in the middle. So we waited while they manoeuvred their way into the top lock. They then proceeded to fill the lock in the slowest manner possible and asked Brigid to get me to move our boat back as they wouldn’t be able to get past as their boat didn’t bend in the middle. I confess that my thoughts by that time were filled with expletives deleted – and did I move back? No, I didn’t! I waved them through, smiled and got into the lock as fast as I could. We went through with no problem at all and between the two locks was ample room for boats to pass. To make matters worse, they had got a hire boat to wait at the bottom until we had come down. Luckily, the hire boat people were quite happy to take a break for a few minutes. Met and fed some friendly ducks.

Another set of hire boaters asked if we knew of somewhere good to stop for the night so, with my wonderful knowledge of favourite pubs, I was able to recommend The Broughton Arms at Rode Heath. Poor dears, they had only got the boat yesterday, moored up at about 8:30 pm in the dark miles from nowhere and had just worked through the set of locks known as heartbreak hill. Hope their evening tonight is better than last night! Further on we came across three Dutchmen who commented on ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen’ but changed the reference to rain and not sun. But all in all, it’s been a good day. Many of the locks have been double locks (side by side, not double length).

Our waterproofs ARE waterproof and there have been burst of sunshine as well as bursts of rain.

A lovely rainbow put in an appearance just after we had passed under the M6 – wouldn’t want to moor anywhere near there, the noise of traffic can be heard for miles.

The boat is dry and cosy inside and we’re glad we’re doing what we are. A last picture for the day of a bridge over the lock entrance.

If you look carefully you can see that the bridge and handrail have a gap in the middle. This allows a horse pulled canal boat to be towed right into the lock without disconnecting the tow rope.