Woodend Lock was our first target for today. We were first in line again to our surprise although again had to wait for an upcoming boat. Chatting at the lockside we were reminded that this was the weekend of the Huddlesford Rally. The skipper told us of his experience passing through yesterday. Boats went on for "miles" and there was only a seven foot passage left for passing boats. The two locks at Fradley gave us no trouble and we were off up the Coventry before long looking forward to momentarily joining the rally. It was nowhere near as bad as portrayed, although slow, the only contentious bit was at the junction itself from where President was moored, in steam, smelling as nostalgic as ever, to about 100 yards past the junction where working boats seemed to feature. Groups of participants gathered at intervals with chairs on the towpath reminded us of our own gathering next weekend. We are glad, though, to be ahead of our plan now, for tomorrow many will be leaving and Atherstone Locks will be a nightmare! From Huddlesford Junction we pressed on and reached Fazeley (more shopping and a water fill) before tackling Glascote Locks. No queue here either. Strange, but probably the Rally we passed earlier was acting as a filter. So Polesworth looked like a possible overnight spot. The good moorings there were basically full, and as TV reception there is poor, due to the nearby hill in spite of being only 9 miles from Sutton Coldfield transmitter, we carried on monitoring the signal as we went using our short stub aerial. Good digital signals were received just before the railway bridge, so we had our mooring on some decent piling. 17:00 hrs and a good day's cruise.
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