A good first day out

Wednesday 28^th September; Calcutt marina to Long Itchington

First, many thanks to Lisa, Mick and Jennie for your comments about Waterway routes and the ipad - it would be so much easier if it had a usb slot, but there we are.  Paul even reset our download limit so we could have another go, but no luck.   I will use the 7-day free trial of the full Acrobat software to make smaller files of the canals we are interested in and then I can email them across.  We will carry on using the analogue version (Nicholson's or printouts) for actual cruising to avoid accidents with electronics!

On Wednesday we arrived at the marina just after 1.  As we’d already eaten our sandwiches in the car on the way up, all we needed to do was unload the car and pay our mooring fees before we could leave.  Luke Cole (of Colecraft) arrived to complete the commissioning of WB Sheffield, against which we were moored, so we had a quick chat with him before setting off towards Stockton Top in bright sunshine.  It was wonderful to be back afloat on such a beautiful afternoon.

The beautiful Warwickshire countryside

We had hoped to get back on the boat on Monday, but Meg has been quite poorly so we have had to wait for the vet’s go-ahead before we could come away.  She isn’t fighting fit yet, and has at least another week of antibiotics ahead of her (she doesn’t mind that, the tablets are concealed in sausages) but she is much more like her old active self now and joined me locking ahead down Stockton locks.

Somewhere on the Stockton flight

The weather was fabulous, warm but not too hot and perfect for a hard afternoon’s locking.  The boat that had been following us from Calcutt had moored somewhere before the top lock, so we were alone and didn’t meet any boats coming up, and had to turn every single lock.  I only worked one side – we calculated once, coming up Hatton on our own, that you save so little time by opening both paddles that you might as well save the effort and just use the towpath side. 

The bottom lock of the first 8

When we have come down the Grand Union locks in previous years we got used to the idea that when you hear the bubbly splashy noise as the lock is emptying then the gates are about to be ready, though I’ve never wondered why that should be.  I was a bit surprised at the top end of the flight that this wasn’t the case today.  It took me till the 8^th lock to work out why – it occurs when the water level reaches the top of the culvert arch of the ground paddles.  And the water levels are a lot lower this year than usual ….  you learn something new every day! 

At Stockton bottom lock are these white plastic discs in the ground – are they to do with checking ground movement?

We trickled quietly on past the two pubs on either side of the canal and moored a couple of hundred yards beyond the road bridge for a well-earned cup of tea and some cake - and to finish the unpacking!  The evening got cold very quickly and we went up to the Boat Inn to eat.  What a lovely warm and welcoming pub!  With full tummies we went back and tried out the Eberspacher for the first time.  It is very noisy, sounds like an aeroplane taking off and then stays noisy.  But it does the job.  We won’t light the stove until I’ve cleaned the flue – that’s a job for tomorrow.

3½ miles, 10 locks