Monday 20th April
After a very nice 10 day stay in the Saltisford Canal Trust Arm and a very pleasant visit from Mum and Dave while we were there we decided to break ourselves back in to travelling gently with a short trip. We did only 5 miles and 2 locks.
We missed the first lock by a few minutes as we stopped for coal and gas before we left and another boat, called Meander, which had been moored behind us at Saltisford, passed us. However, when we caught them up they said they would wait at the next lock. We said not to worry because we were only doing the 2 locks but they said they would..
This didn’t go quite as planned because there was a Viking Adrift waiting to come up and apparently they got a bit snotty about having to wait as they were ‘in a hurry’. So the people on Meander went down so they could come up.
This didn’t make any difference to us because the lock was still in our favour anyway. We passed Meander when they stopped at Tesco in Leamington, where they told us about the snotty hirers.
We carried on to Radford Road Bridge and stopped on the first bit of armco. There was a small boat moored at the other end of it. After mooring we went off to The White Lion for a pint obviously. They had Courage Director’s on which is one of our favourites but we were very abstemious following our rather boozy week and left just after 2 pm.
We returned to the boat and had our tea and biscuits then Ken went and sat outside. After a little while a boat came and moored right in front of us ………….. it was Meander. Now, we had been moored in front of them for 10 days at Saltisford and hardly exchanged more than a few words. We thought they were the keep themselves to themselves type.
Err no, after they moored up they very soon engaged Ken in conversation. Then the drinks came out, then the chairs came out and one way or another it was getting on for 8 pm before we even thought about cooking dinner! We abandonned our first dinner plan which had been to have roast lamb and had ham, egg and chips instead! I finished washing up at 9 pm.
These two were called Roger and Liz and they had a cat called Jazz. She kept tentatively coming out on to the bank while we were sitting there. While we were having our dinner there was all this meowing and I thought ‘Oh Jazz is out again’.
Well, she was out all right, she had jumped through their hatch (which had been on the bank side all the time they were in Saltisford) straight into the canal! Not only that but she had swum to the opposite side of the canal and got out into the field. Roger had to hot foot it round there with a towel to get her back! Good job there was a bridge.
Needless to say we slept well that night!
