This morning we left Stockton and tackled the 10 locks in the Stockton flight. This proved to be easy because they were all in our favour, for once! We met a couple of boats coming up too. We stopped for water after 8 locks after which we paired up with another boat for the last 2. Then we stopped at Cuttle about 10-30am.
We had planned to go to Radford Semele and as we had another boat to share the locks with this would have been a good idea but we decided to stop at Cuttle anyway.
After we moored up I cut Ken’s hair and then we had a shower. Funny time to have a shower you’re thinking. We are finding that now we have solar panels and a 12v fridge we don’t have to run the engine again later in the day, after we have travelled, to top up the batteries so we are reluctant to run it just to heat up the water for a shower. If we have a shower as soon as we moor up the water is already hot.
When we were ready we walked to Long Itchington, about 10 mins away, to go to the Coop. There are 3 pubs in Long Itchington and we tried the Duck on the Pond last time we were there. This time we tried The Harvester which was ok except the beers were really strong! We had a pint of Dorothy Goodbody and it was 6%.
It was also a bit cloudy and yeasty, not a success. Also they were expecting a funeral wake to arrive shortly so we sat outside, drank up and returned to the canal. Where, as luck would have it, we were moored within hailing distance of 2 further pubs!
The Cuttle Inn is on the opposite side of the canal to where we are moored and The Two Boats is on our side. We had been to The Two Boats before and knew they did a nice pint of Bombardier so we stopped there.
We were just finishing up and preparing to go back to the boat, me to do some cleaning and Ken to set up the new tv and cook the dinner when a boat came under the bridge which I recognised. It was Rosie and Jim, sorry I mean Rosie and Phil and their choc lab Buster,from Droitwich marina who we met last year.
As soon as he saw us Phil said ‘We’re stopping’, moored up and joined us. The boat they had been travelling with also stopped but they didn’t come to the pub. We then ended up having a rather protracted session (bearing in mind we had already had our quota before they got there) catching up with them.
Since we last saw them they have got married so after the pub we went back to their boat for a cup of tea and to look at the wedding photos. During this the chap from the other boat said they were ready to go so we got up to leave. Just as Phil was about to cast off another boat went past gazumping them to the lock!
We should laugh, Phil said as it was our fault we could do the lock for them after the others had gone! We went back to our boat and got our windlasses.
It was lovely to see them and we did discuss the idea of having a couple of weeks on the Canal du Midi together so fingers crossed.
Tomorrow we are definitely going to Radford Semele.
