Progress

It is almost unbelievable that we have moved over 80 lock miles in 5 days passing many of our usual stops. After Fradley our stops were at Alvercote, Atherstone, Hawkesbury, Hillmorton and Willoughby. As you can imagine we are wacked and resting a while. The weather was variable but we pushed on regardless. Ann took the helm for a while most days.

The flight of locks at Atherstone were climbed in the dry with only the last three locks being ‘taken’ by no less than three boats coming down. “Send the lock takers back to Coventry!” A local lock keeper is no longer in attendance to control the use of those locks.

As we approached the locks at Hillmorton a boat came out and promptly turned round in front of us. The temporary lock keeper just let the boater go back up! There are twin locks here but one is shut to save water. “No comment”. One of the middle pounds was very low because apparently a boater had left a paddle up! There was no keeper at the top lock to control boats going down. Boats were still passing through ‘after hours’.

We consumed our ‘mucky duck’ eggs while on the journey.