What a wonderful surprise at Lapworth - 23 to 24 September

Sunday 23rd September 2018
Tom O'Wood to Lapworth
1.5 miles, 6 locks

It was still raining Sunday morning and as we left the goats in the field on the other side of the canal were huddled together in a shelter.

 It only took around half and hour for the rain to stop  and it remained fine until mid afternoon - it would have been a better day to do Hatton today.  Hey ho - why do we believe the forecasters?

At Kingswood Junction we turned left

into the Stratford Canal

We needed to turn right at the end where there is a choice of two locks - the easiest one was out of order, so we had no choice but to go into the basin.  A boat was coming down the last lock and wanted to turn into the junction, however, instead of waiting for us to emerge, they went past and then had a devil's own job to get back into position.  They made it eventually and we reversed back to the facilities block and emptied and filled as required.

The lock had been left ready for us and there was an added bonus of a volunteer lock keeper who helped us up all six locks

We moored just above lock 15 by the new houses which means you are further away from the road.

The first job was to walk to the village shop to collect the paper.  I had phoned ahead and asked for one to be put aside - the shop keeper here is really obliging and has reserved papers for us in the past.

Next stop was to the pub (The Boot) where we hoped to have a sandwich lunch, however, as with a lot of places, they only do meals on a Sunday.  The roast looked amazing, but just too big for us at lunch time, so we had two starters which we shared and one desert and two spoons.  Perfect.

We had a quiet afternoon.  Around 19:15 there was a knocking on our stern doors.  Monty was the first to respond.  I was in the galley (in the stern) cooking, so was the next to the door and what a wonderful surprise it was to find Irene and Ian from FreeSpirit.  They had gone past us around 16:00 - I am not sure how we missed them as we were here and awake!  I suspect that Chris was starting to sort the fire out  on his knees and I was doing dinner prep with my back to the window.  It was wonderful to see them both (they were moored at Kingswood Junction on their way to the Grand Union), but such a shame that our dinner was imminent and not something that would wait, so our chat was very brief.  Better luck next time.

Monday 24th September 2018
Lapworth

A day off and the sun shone!  I took the dogs for a long walk in the morning and when we returned Chris was hanging the towels on the washing line.  Our mooring is the only one on this stretch that is in full sun all day at this time of year.

The rest of the day was catching up on internet stuff and domestic duties.  I cleaned the port half of the roof and the port side of the boat.  Just a wipe down with a wet cloth and a quick buff with a dry cloth, but it will do until we get back to the marina when she will get a proper shampoo and polish.  Monty dutifully monitored me to ensure I did it properly whilst Kiera supervised Chris lighting the fire from the comfort of her bed with her eyes closed!

There are four other boats ahead of us pointing the same way as we are - the big question is - who will get to the locks first in the morning?  The last boat moving today went up, so whatever happens the locks are likely to be against us.