Back on board and on our way to the Severn

17th to 20th June

The trip to Lincoln went very well, thank you for asking. As with the last time we travelled went there by train, the journey, although involving two changes, went smoothly, with all the trains on time, clean, tidy and not overcrowded.

I know it's not always like that; the last stage of the return trip was from Birmingham New Street to Penkridge on a service going to Liverpool Lime Street. As we waited to depart, the station announcer informed those waiting for the Aberystwyth service that today their train was starting from Wolverhampton, and so they should take our train to that station. The carriages promptly filled up, of course, with people heading for Shrewsbury and points west.

On arrival at Wolverhampton, they were told that in fact the mid Wales service was now starting from Shrewsbury, and that they'd have to change again there. Even the conductor on our train thought it a bit much.

On arrival at Penkridge, we did some essential shopping at the Co-op, and then slogged it out to the yard. It's not a huge walk, and we only made one wrong turning, which we were pretty pleased about. I should explain that we'd been given a lift into Penkridge on Tuesday by a very kind man from the boat next to us, so we had to find our way back on the basis of our memory of the map and of what we'd seen through the car windows.

As I say, it worked out very well: almost too well, as I'd hoped to use the experience as part of the evidence for buying a handheld GPS. Hey ho.

We got back just too late to go into the office and claim our fiver back for the non-functional electricity card, of course, so Otherton is better off by that amount. On balance, the Boat Haven was no more than OK – they were perfectly polite and did what we asked, i.e. kept the boat safe while we were away, but there wasn't much of a welcoming atmosphere, either from the yard staff or the other moorers, with the exception of this guy of Rivendell, the shared ownership boat, who gave us a lift.

The big effort last night was cleaning the fridge freezer before turning it back on. Sheila heroically washed the whole thing, boiling kettles of water to do so, as of course there was no hot in the calorifier, and I didn't want to use amp hours running the Eberspacher. We finally got it back together and restarted. I'm pleased to say that the batteries coped well with the extra load overnight as it froze down again.

Today we got an early start at eight, working up the five locks to Gailey with a fair bit of traffic about already. By 10.20 we'd got to Bridge 76, just before Hatherton Junction. This is a pleasant country mooring, and has the advantage that we can make another early get away tomorrow and get through the bandit country around Autherley and Aldersley junctions in good time. The aim is to be at Compton in time to do some more shopping for lunch – obviously we only bought immediately necessary stuff yesterday, with over a mile to carry it in addition to our overnight things, so at Compton we'll be able to get back to normal catering.

Another advantage here is a waymarked walk along the towpath and back round some minor roads. The waymarks are little interpretation boards – well done to BW for a good bit of added value the canal side scene.

Sadly, it's not possible to walk up the remains of the Hatherton Arm. When restored as part of the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal, it will make for a really useful connection across the Northern part of the BCN to Huddlesford Junction on the Coventry that we know so well. It would be a good PR boost for the L&HCT if it was possible to explore the line at this end in the way that you can at the other.

My thanks to all who have made encouraging noises about the pictures I posted last time. I'll try and put some more up in due course, though it does depend on quality of connection. Blogger is real pain to upload photos to if the connection is at all iffy – I don't know what other blogging services such as WordPress are like for that.

I've got some photos of Daniel on his first birthday, and some I took while we walking today, so I may well put them up by uploading them to my main website and then cross linking them to the blog, once we get a good connection again – it's very slow and erratic here.