Saturday 19 May 2018

A sorting out sort of day

As planned, we've spent today on the mooring below Gailey lock. It's another warm sunny day, the first part of which was spent inside with the engine running and the washing machine churning away. I took the opportunity to catch up with a load of entries for the Owners' Group Pub Guide. These took a bit of time because some of them involved creating new sections for waterways that hadn't previously featured and I was very rusty on the routine for doing that.

However, it was all sorted before lunch and the new version of the Guide uploaded to the Owners' Group site. After lunch we had a bit of Bill and Ben time – those who are decrepit old enough to recall Watch with Mother will remember that every episode of the Flowerpot Men ended with the words "and they all dozed quietly in the summer sun".

There followed another walk, again to Rodbaston Lock, there not being much else in the way of route options here (unless you fancy a stroll beside the A5 or wandering back along the canal past the lines of moored boats). There was quite a lot of traffic, so we had a few opportunities to assist at the various locks and plenty of chances to chat.

Back at Gailey, we went on to the Round House shop for more ice cream. I also bought one of the Working Waterways series of paperbacks I'd not got, namely Tom Foxon's Number One. These accounts of life on the cut at the end of the carrying days are quite intriguing – as long as you don't fall into the trap of trying to emulate their methods on a system that's just not robust enough to take it any more.

Tomorrow, we'll make an average start for the two hour run to the Cross Keys pub above Filance lock.



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