Back to Fazeley for pre-Chistmas shopping

17th & 18th December

We had a relaxed start yesterday after our busy day the day before. I went to the post office first thing to post a couple of parcels containing Christmas presents, then we set off down the locks in glorious sunny weather, fresh and frosty with a blue sky, making the most of one of our favourite lock flights.

At lock 7, a nice lady popped out of the house alongside to thank me for this blog, which had explained to her why the garage was flooded when they got home after a weekend away. Apparently, blocked culverts are a bit of a feature of life around the Atherstone flight; it's obviously not just the ground paddle culverts which were designed too small.

It's always a big buzz to meet someone who reads my ramblings, especially when they've been of some use!

We'd been running a sock load in the washing machine as we worked down, and by the time we got to the bottom they were all done. This meant that whilst filling the tank at the water point, we could start a towel load on the go as well. Then it was off again to Alvecote; we kept going with the aid of mugs of soup, and had lunch as soon as we got there.

It had been a brilliant days boating, with not another boat seen on the move all day. It's times like this that make us so glad to follow the lifestyle we do.

We had another busy afternoon, printing off copies of the family calendar and preparing them for posting today. I also got Sheila to give me a hair and beard trim, so that I shall look quite presentable over Christmas.

Today we set off in fine style, and soon reached the two mile stretch of suburbia that is the canal through Amington. This is another bit that's been tidied up a lot; time was when we could rely on getting a good supply of firewood in the course of a cruise through here, but on this occasion nothing presented itself until we started down Glascote locks, which did, however, yield a couple of bits of useful looking stuff.

We went straight round to Fazeley Mill to pump out and diesel up. They wouldn't let me make up the undercharge from last time, so I donated the cash to the Purple Salute charity, which is the brainchild of Corinne at the yard. Since we have a serving soldier for a son, it's not hard to persuade us to support such an organization.

After tearing ourselves away, we popped back up the canal to moor just before the junction. I took some calendars to the post office, then we had lunch before carrying on to the Sutton Road Bridge mooring. Things seem to be happening on the wasteland that adjoins this bit of the cut. There's some serious earthmoving going on, so presumably it's going to be developed in some way.

We've had a good trip to the shops to finish the pressie shopping; we plan to stay here tomorrow, especially as the forecast's not that good, and stock up on food and stuff, then plod on towards Fradley on Saturday.