Arriving a day early

6th & 7th August

This is going to be the last "normal" (hah!) blog for a while, as we've now arrived at Autherley and will be heavily involved in setting up the IWA National Festival. Last year I just stopped posting for three weeks, but then found it really hard to get going again afterwards.

This year, we plan to try to keep to the alternate day schedule, but some of the time it may be Sheila who posts rather than me, and the timing may well be a bit more variable than normal.

To bring things up to date:

Yesterday, we set off for an early start, getting away at 7.30. Sheila got on her bike from the outset; this is one of those runs where it really comes into its own, as the locks are about half a mile apart on average, though some are closer together and others more spaced out.

We chugged steadily along, being pursued by some novices in a very big Anglo Welsh, who at first seemed quite fierce, but this proved to be nervousness on their part, and we soon established cordial relations.

We had a short wait at the foot of the Bratch whilst a couple of boats came down, then went up in our turn. There was plenty of room on the visitor moorings at the top, where we settled for the afternoon and evening. The internet connection there was quite odd; it was showing a fast connection according to the modem, but in fact was very unreliable.

After lunch I took a walk back to Wombourne to get a paper. As I left, Reece and Di turned up and moored just ahead of us. On my return, I found Di walking along the towpath calling to their Springer spaniel, Holly. Holly had jumped into the cut and was swimming to and fro for exercise. Apparently this is a habit of hers, and although normally a well behaved pooch, in these circumstances it can be an hour before she agrees to come out.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon using the discs so kindly provided by Andy Greener to update the iBook's operating system. Although a reasonably straightforward procedure (this is a Mac, after all), it's always a bit nerve wracking doing such radical work to the computer which is so important to our lifestyle. I had, of course, taken the precaution of backing everything up, so if the worst came to the worst, I could just put it all back the way it was.

All went well, in the event; I had to reinstall the drivers for the modem, and PhotoShop is whingeing about something, but still seems to be working.

The only trouble was that this morning the internet connection was not just unreliable, it didn't work at all. We set off for Compton anyway, but couldn't get a signal there. Meantime, we'd had an interesting morning's boating in that we passed another boat at each lock between the Bratch and Compton. Quite why this section of canal was so busy comparatively early in the day wasn't clear; just chance, I guess, and the fact that it was very pleasant, weather-wise, with the risk of rain later, so everyone had decided to get their boating done while the sun shone.

After lunch, we decided to carry on to Autherley in the hope of finding a better connection. In fact, as soon as we'd worked up Compton Lock, the signal reappeared, and everything is working again. Since there's nowhere we'd want to stop between Compton and Autherley, we came on to the Festival site anyway.

So here we are again, meeting and greeting old friends from previous years and getting a feel for the place.

Watch this space for progress reports as we put the Festival together.