Monday 2nd September
Today’s trip has been fairly short, we have only travelled 3.5 miles and 1 lock from Willington to The Ragley Boat Stop. Having said that the one lock that we did was the mighty Stenson Lock and I did do it twice because I helped a single hander on a wide beam first. The bottom gates do not fully open at the moment and it was touch and go as to whether he would be able to get out but he managed it ok. Those gates are very heavy and I had difficulty opening them.
Before we left Willington we walked round to the recycling centre in the park and I got rid of some unwanted clothes. Then we went to the Coop again before returning to the boat just in time for someone to gazump us to the water point! However, they weren’t on there long and we had soon filled up ourselves and were on our way.
We arrived at The Ragley Boat Stop before lunch and met up with Mick and Cathy again who have been here since Saturday. This evening we went for a meal, two 10 oz rump steaks and a bottle of wine for £17, not bad.
Tomorrow we are going not very far again, only to Weston where there is a fishing lake that Mick and Ken are going to to check out. If they like the look of it they are going to have a day’s fishing there on Wednesday. Ken doesn’t usually do lake fishing or day fishing come to that so it will be a change for him. Incidentally he has just caught a nice Mirror Carp weighing about 9 lb here tonight (see photo).
