Moving on South

6th & 7th April

We went to bed the night before last after an evening of huge hailstones bouncing around and splashing into the water. In the morning, there was a fairly complete covering of snow across the landscape. It looked so good, I was dressed and out of the boat at 7.30 taking pictures.

We had breakfast and then set off up the remainder of the Atherstone flight, arriving at the handy mooring between locks 6 and 5 just before 10. By the time I'd walked round to the Co-op Superstore, it was 10 and they'd opened up, it being Sunday.

Sheila meanwhile remained behind on anchor watch, running a wash load. Respective tasks done, we set off again, with me taking my turn at working the locks.

These were all taking a bit longer than usual, as the snow made everything quite slippery. Normally, on narrow locks like these, the lockwheeler will step across the lock at the bottom from an open gate to a closed one, or vice versa, but with snow and ice on the footboards, it was not a good idea. Much time had thus to be spent walking up one side of the lock and down the other.

Nonetheless, we made steady progress, and arrived at Hartshill by 12.15. We'd had mugs of soup on the way to keep the cold out, but were still well ready for our lunch.

After lunch we went to Dobbies. We'd no major items in mind, but managed to spend a bit of cash, even so. The food store had nice crisps (Tyrell's) and a sugar free fruit cake, and we got a replacement plant pot saucer for the bay tree tub from the garden centre itself (the old one having blown away in the gales earlier in the year).

Finally we bought some dried fruit at the Julian Graves concession and headed back to the boat.

Today we had the long haul from Hartshill to All Oaks Wood at Brinklow to do, so Sheila decided to make a really early start, despite the cold morning. Whilst I was making the first thing tea, she got up and started boating, so that we were on our way by 7.30

Although it really was very cold, it was quite pleasant, and Sheila had cocooned herself in warm clothes. I took over just before Nuneaton so that she could get breakfast, and we got to Sutton's Stop by 10.20. We watered there, and then carried on for All Oaks Wood.

Sheila made an excellent job of the tricky turn off the Coventry onto the Oxford, despite the fact that I was chatting to a couple from one of the moored boats as I waited by the stop lock. Usually, of course, if you are observed things go pear shaped, but this time Sanity came round the 180 degree turn under the bridge in one move, no reversing or heavy revving at all.

The couple I was talking to remembered the early days of Braidbar, as they'd been moored at Whaley Bridge at the time, and their boat, like the early Braidbars, was based on a Chappell and Wright hull.

At 12 we had another mug of soup en route, but, as so often going this way, we'd forgotten how far it is from Hawkesbury to Brinklow. It's one of those routes that we know far too well to bother checking the cruising guides, and then we get taken by surprise. As it was, it was gone 1.30 before we'd finished, and we were very glad to get our lunch.

A quiet afternoon followed. We don't actually need to be at Newbold until Wednesday evening, so we'll probably stay here tomorrow, and then go on the next day.