Onward and upward

Saturday 3^rd May; Atherstone lock 9 to Hartshill

The air was very fresh this morning when I took Jess out first thing and it was still so chilly when we left, shortly before 9, that we wore woolly hats and I even had my gloves on for the walk up to lock 9.

The sun was very bright and the sky shows white even though it was blue.  I don’t think my camera can cope with the contrast between shade and bright sun.

Annoyingly a boat had passed us before we were ready to leave, so I had to turn the first two locks – but soon boats were coming down and the rest of the flight was very easy.  Very nice after the heavy locks we have been used to this last week or two!  At lock 6, above Baddesley Basin, a small fibreglass pram dinghy (empty) emerged from the bushes and tried to follow Dave into the lock until I closed the gates – I didn’t want to risk it getting crushed and sinking in the lock.  With a boat arriving to go down we explained the situation but I could see a CRT bod coming down so I went and reported it to him.  We moored before the busy road bridge and went into town for some shopping.  We were very confused for a while, as the Toolbox appeared to be in the wrong place – but it turned out they had moved across the street, though they have kept the original shop for less tool-type items like buckets.  Dave went in to search for a drawer-knob for the galley while I went off to join the Saturday queue at Bates the butcher.   Then I  popped into the baker (next to Greggs) to buy some tasty snacks for lunch before we did a 4-bag Tesco shop.  We got going straight away, this time with benefit of four volunteers, one at each lock.

Lockie’s coffee keeping warm

From the first volunteer, the one I had reported the loose boat to, we learnt that it had been sold along with a narrowboat, although the new owner wasn’t keen to keep it.  He must have quietly undone the rope once out of the marina, and escaped before he was spotted.  The lockie helped a moorer from the little marina to retrieve it for his grandchildren to use, who was last seen paddling it back into the marina with a spade.  It leaked, but he hoped to mend it.  We had met lots of boats going down the flight, but we were only the second going up.

We moored opposite the abandoned hat factory for lunch.  A sale fell through last year, and last December part of the wall on the street side fell down, and a petition has been started for the whole thing to be demolished.

So sad

After lunch I walked back to the top lock to drop off a couple of books at the book swap, choosing one in return, then we cruised on and stopped at the CRT wharf in Hartshill to fill up with water.  As it’s on the offside, Dave grabbed the opportunity to finally get all the stick off the starboard side.  Luckily no-one else wanted water so he could finish the job.  We moored where we usually do, just round the corner from the Anchor.  Dave then replaced the drawer knob in the galley.  It had been too small for the job – the drawer is heavy and very solid – and the knob had come loose and couldn’t be re-tightened.

It's a little larger than the other knobs, but a fairly close match to look at.  More important, it's now a lot easier to open the drawer!

Then he took Jess off to chase rabbits on the walk down to the railway while I tried to catch up with blog posts.  The Wi-Fi signal on this trip has been particularly dodgy – slow, dropping out or non-existent on many days.

4½ miles, 9 locks