Sunday 22 July 2018

A bit of excitement on the way home

We had a couple of interesting experiences on the way home yesterday. First off, there was the body on the towpath above Tatenhill lock. Lying on the waterside edge of the towpath, this old dear was curled up on her side with some belongings nearby. I couldn't get the boat in before the lock landing, so Elanor had a bit of a walk back to her, wondering what she was going to find.

In fact she was just asleep with her glasses neatly on the ground beside her and her head resting on her handbag. Later on, as we were entering the lock, I saw her stand up, turn round and lie down again.

Just seemed an odd place for a kip, that's all.

Secondly, we've previously had bother persuading Sanity Again to leave Dallow lock when working downhill, but this time she was firmly aground and flatly refused to move. In the end, I had to draw a top paddle and flush her out. Once she was moving, I dropped the paddle and she promptly stopped again. I had to leave the paddle up until she was clear of the lock.

The pound was a bit down, but not that much. There's just too much silt in the bottom of that lock. I've emailed CRT via the website about it – they don't seem to publish email addresses for individual waterway offices any more, so I've bunged another email off to Damian Kemp at head office about that, too.

We're now back in the lodge, hiding from the sun and catching up with the laundry. Next trip will be towards the end of this month, on our way to Poynton for the Braidbar Owners' Weekend. If there's any water to boat in by then, of course...



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