Another lovely day

An early start today (6.45am) as we were planning on getting to Stoke on Trent for Wednesday so that David could catch a train up to Carlisle to pick up Olek, our 9 year old grandson, and bring him back to the boat for several days.

The sky is more visible in the reflection on the water - beautiful

It was beautiful this morning – sunny, calm, and very peaceful. We saw no other boats on the move until we got to Alrewas. However, we did see the Edna May all closed up tight (it was still very early) but I gave them 4 toots on the horn and looked back to see Lindsay leaning out the duck hatch waving – sorry, Lindsay and Steve, but I couldn’t resist waking you … I thought about reversing the catch up with them but decided it was probably kinder to let them go back to bed!

Wharf House is for sale at Barton Turn - I wonder how much?

Why does David look worried? Barton Turn Lock

See evidence of my 3rd cuppa, and Mel looking relaxed but vigilant

The lock at the beginning of the river section - see my stool for added height?

It looks like I am aiming for the weir, but relax ...

The arrows say it all, three times ...

We have to get through that narrow gap - slowly does it

The lock at the top of the Alrewas river section

The river section up to Alrewas was lovely – lower than when we did it a couple of weeks ago. We stopped to water up in Alrewas and I was going to have a shower while that was taking place, but Angie and Roy from Second Chance stopped to chat, so no shower. Hopefully they will come and stay with us when they are in NZ later this year. At the lock past the winding hole I chatted with another couple walking their aged lab – he was a millennium puppy. The man had sisters in NZ and the couple have been to visit them a few times in NZ. We see more and more people who have connections with or have travelled to NZ each time we are over here. Today’s 2 couples both had a connection with Waiheke Island – a beautiful place, but not one we expect to be familiar to people from the UK somehow!

We had a text from Sybil whose birthday party we are heading for at Stalybridge on 13 July, so hopefully she and Jon will be coming to visit one day shortly. On checking the map I see they are not far away by car – the fact it will take much longer on the boat gets in the way of my thinking about journey times in the real world!

We also spoke with Tim and he is going to bring Olek down to us on Saturday – that will be lovely. It does mean 2 fewer nights with Olek onboard, but it will save David either 2 days of train journeys or one extremely full day and means neither Tim nor Marta have to rearrange work commitments to bring him to Carlisle to rendezvous with David.

We are now moored up past the locks at Fradley Junction – a total of about 4.5 hours boating today (including 10 locks) and that felt like enough. David is doing chores – sorting out the rope I forgot to get Tony to splice (as a demonstration of course) yesterday, fixing the ‘stop tap’ (not sure what it is called) to the new hose reel and other bits I haven’t yet seen or been informed of. He did say he wants me to do a drill job, but I think when this post is loaded on the blog, I may have a nana nap …

The lock gates here are bent to avoid the bridge

At the Fradley Locks - David makes it look easy

Binoculars out - is anyone coming down?

 I'm sorry that the photos are not particularly well positioned - I cannot get some of them to move as I want. Fear not - I am sure you get the general idea. Off for my nana nap now, methinks, before David notices ...