Alrewas

This morning it was raining hard, so we were a little slower getting the boat ready for today's leg.  However, by 6:50 it had stopped.  Pat went to get a morning paper and we left the moorings at 7:12.  As usual with early starts we met only one or two boats until we reached Huddlesford Junction.  Then opposite direction traffic came in waves.  At Fradley Junction a passing towpath walker opened the swing bridge for us and we counted ourselves lucky that we were just third in line for the first lock down.  Opposite direction boats meant plenty of help for the lock, but by the next lock we had an extra boat - a day hire from Barton Turns.  GRadually, though, with the next three locks the queue got smaller.  There were moorings at Alrewas and we tied up just in front of the hire boat. The occupants had already left.  Fifteen minutes later it was adrift.  With another neighbouring boater it was recovered and made secure.  Chatting with our neighbour it turned out that they were in trouble with water in the fuel, had had to call out an engineer three times and were now waiting for the injectors to be returned after cleaning.  Their last fuel was obtained at Shardlow.  It turned out to be a lovely warm afternoon with sunshine.  I took the opportunity to remove some rope from the prop, rub a bit of brass and prepare the Cobb barbecue for baked potatoes and chicken.

Comments

[Bruce Napier]

Hi Mike

What's the river section like now? We're about three days behind you.

Cheers

Bruce

[Mike]

Hi Bruce,

We passed through the river section today. All quiet! And likely to remain so given the weather forecast.

Mike