Ansty

Ansty is our computer advised target overnight stop for today, so we have recovered time lost yesterday due to the rain “stopping play”.   An extra hour today, therefore, some of it spent waiting in a queue to get through Hawkesbury stop lock.    Our early start paid dividends in that we had no interruptions on our ascent of Atherstone’s 11 locks and we’re the only mark on the top lock-keepers score board for the day at the time of our arrival.   Pat has returned to normal lock operation in that she has been working next lock ahead to ensure uninterrupted passage of the boat from one lock to the next.   However, from Atherstone onwards we met lots of opposite direction traffic and were following in a small convoy for some of the time, all possibly due to a marked improvement in the weather.   Hawkesbury junction as expected was “busy”.  The Coventry Canal is joined by the Oxford Canal here in a 180 degree turn through a bridge and ending in a stop lock (a lock historically designed with a rise of just a few inches to prevent water from one company leaking into another).   The 180 turn is tricky and some boats need to make forward and reverse mores to accommodate it, thus adding to the congestion at busy times.   Success for a “turn in one” is best achieved by going very slowly.   I still have not worked out in my head what was actually happening, but we found ourselves behind a boat waiting to go through in turn waiting for an opposite boat or two.  Pat was at the lock probably acting as a traffic controller.   Not long to Ansty with limited moorings on the corve Rugby side of the village only.