Boating merrily on

We've had another highly enjoyable if tiring day's boating. With the uncertainty about the problems at lock 10, Sheila decided on an early start, leapt lightly up before six and was on her way by quarter past. I had tea in bed, checked the emails, washed and dressed, breakfasted and took over in time for Sheila to get her grub before we hit the locks.

In the event, things were no big problem, despite the dire forecasts of the woman from Brighouse we met at Glascote. Sure, the offside top paddle is missing at 10, so it takes nine minutes to fill, but that's not that unusual on this flight. It's one of the reasons we try to do it early in the day, like Great Haywood or Fradley.

We met some Volockies at 9 and got the story of yesterday's emergency stoppage at the top. It seems the guy steering the big mower, all half a tonne of it and a four foot swathe, got the strap of his life jacket caught in the throttle and couldn't get it free. He just managed to undo the lifer and wriggle out of it before it could drag him over the edge into the empty lock.

If he'd gone over with it he would surely have been severely injured if not killed. As it was, they had to drain the pound between 1 and 2, bring up a straddle hoist from somewhere and reverse the work boat up from where it was positioned to do the scheduled work on 10. Having lifted the mower with the hoist, they refilled the pound and brought the work boat into the lock below the mower.

Once the mower was lowered into the boat, it could be removed from the lock.

It's a case study in the dangers of marginally necessary PPE. BW tended to be blind to the additional hazards created by their health and safety procedures and it's to be hoped that CRT learn from this incident. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a serious safety culture, work environments are much less dangerous than they used to be, but common sense is also a valuable commodity.

Having raided Aldi and worked up the rest of the flight we arrived at a nice towpath mooring just short of Hartshill in time for lunch.

This afternoon we've rinsed and microfibred the port side and generally taken it easy. We're watching out for a Rose Narrowboat that passed us yesterday but which we passed again early this morning. Yesterday, it was being steered by a guy seemingly dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, black frock coat, stovepipe hat and all.

Presumably a charity run or something; it would be fun to find out.