Back up the hill

All this boating about really makes you aware of the topography of the countryside you're traversing. We're on our way back up out of the Avon valley, so it was 16 locks and 4½ miles today, returning to Wilmcote.

We hung about waiting for the Gregg's shop to open, so that I could get a nice loaf of their country grain bread, but when it did, it was only selling some very basic stuff, being essentially a sandwich and snack shop. So I went to the Sainsbury's Local up the hill, and bought a sliced loaf there.

Grocery shopping in Stratford was a bit restricted. Unless you visit the Tesco accessible from Bridge 65 (and there's not a lot of mooring there), the choice is the aforesaid Sainsbury's or a similar Co-op, both very much town centre, limited floor space stores. There's a better choice of stuff here at Wilmcote, frankly.

Getting Sanity Again off her pontoon mooring was interesting. The basin had completely filled up yesterday afternoon, so we had boats either side. I was able to back her across the basin, then I held the stern on the bank whilst Sheila shafted the bow round until we'd winded sufficiently for me to motor out. Then it was a case of making the turn under the exit bridge, and off we jolly well went.

We had a steady and uneventful run up the first locks and stopped on the water point to fill up and start a washload. Wilmcote flight was pretty as ever, with little traffic until we reached the the top three. Here we had an encounter with a 70 foot Anglo Welsh containing a very cheerful but novice mixed crew of Brits and Japanese, closely followed by a day boat who locked down the top lock, turned and went straight back up.

Enquiry showed that it was nothing to do with Sheila's steering (we'd swapped roles half way up) but that they'd run out of time and didn't want to go any further. The second day boat from Wootton Wawen was just behind, but they elected to stay above the lock to eat lunch, so we were able to carry on up, finally arriving at Wilmcote at a quarter to one.

We've decided to return through Birmingham over the next few days, and I've rewritten the Cruising Plans box on the right to match. Regular readers will recall that the 3 connection was pretty iffy from Wootton Wawen through Lapworth, so don't be surprised if I'm reduced to tweeting for a couple of days.