Stewponey

Saturday: We returned to the boat last evening and immediately set out to find a Chinese takeaway.  The one on the main drag from bridge 5 turned out to be excellent indeed.   Overnight the promised rain arrived, some of it heavy judging by the noise on the roof.   While we were away, our friends had re-arranged the boats and we were on the towpath with VIRGO breasted up to us.  We needed a pump-out and water, so extricated ourselves by holding VIRGO's bow and stern ropes from the bank and reversing out around the boat moored behind us.  I did have to nip up onto the roof to free the stern rope which had lodged under the boat pole, but essentially it all went according to plan.  We then negotiated York Road Lock and reversed onto the sanitary station point.  This is a BW self service pump-out machine operated with one of the new £10 cards.   It gives six minutes worth which is not quite enough for my tank, so as expected, just as I was getting down to the nasty black stuff at the bottom of the tank it gave up.  If the poor boater who follows me is daft enough to open the valve before connecting up to the boat he or she will get their shoes dirty, as the residue which remains in the pipe falls out.   So after all it was about 9:00 am before we set off back up the canal.  The rain was light and not troublesome, but after Kidderminster Town Lock it became heavy for the next hour and a half and by lunch time my feet were bathing in little shoe sized paddling pools.  So a stop for lunch and a stove lighting procedure to start to dry off.   After lunch it seemed wise to put on the ultimate wet weather gear which I normally reserve for winter cruising.  From past experience deployment of this kit always stops the rain falling - and so it turned out.   Well, to be honest it changed it to very light rain.  At Kinver, our first choice for overnight mooring, there were no moorings left.   So we carried on to Stewponey and found the 24 hour moorings clear.   Once moored, two boats we passed moored at Kinver have gone by.  We were too early this time!