South to North

Friday 15th June; on to Kingswood Junction

Stratford Canal, that is.

This is a lovely spot.  How about this for a rosy outlook from your bedroom window?

It wasn’t long before we were passing the long line of permanent moorings below Lowsonford lock.  I got off at the water point with some rubbish, and went up to open the lock.  The lock cottage here is owned by the Landmark Trust, and last time we passed the couple staying there had their chairs out enjoying the sunshine and the passing boats, glasses of something cool in their hands.  Today there was a grey wheely bin outside belonging to a laundry business; as we came up the lock, the cleaning lady was extracting bags of clean linen for the next visitors.  The bench by the top gates has a plaque in memory of the last permanent occupant.

We made steady progress up the locks, not hurrying.  One lock is particularly noisy, with the M40 thundering overhead

Unless a cloud came across it was quite hot.  The sheep were seeking shade.

There is a short stretch of mooring between locks 22 and 23, and that is where we spotted NB Oleanna.  I knocked on the roof and out came Pip for a chat – and I had the honour of meeting Miss Tilly, the extremely pretty little black and white cat.

A boat was just leaving the water point at the junction as we came up the last lock, so we topped up the tank and emptied a cassette before going through the link, down to the Grand Union to turn, and coming back to tie up on the end of the 48-hr moorings.

After lunch Dave went down the engine hole to give it a clean, while I hauled everything out of the well deck to give it a much-needed sweep.  Unfortunately there was a fair bit of rust under the matting so I ended up employing the wire brush and a lot of elbow-grease.  Then I went off for a run and left Dave to finish off.  By the time I came back he had the Red-ox paint out and it ended up looking a lot better.

He also touched up the blacking on this side so we are a bit smarter than we were!  I hadn’t been back long when Pip and Mick came round for a chat, which was great as although we have read each other’s blogs for a while we haven’t met before. 

Pip said she has sent a couple of comments via blogger which haven’t got through – this seems to have been a problem on other people’s blogs too.  I don’t know if there is anything that can be done to get comments working again?

3 miles, 11 locks