Saturday 23nd Aug 2024 – While we have 3 extra members of crew, we decide to use them to get back up the Lapworth flight, so Ellie, Mary and Sonia take the cars and head off to leave one at Dickens Heath, on the way there they visit the Wedges Bakery Shop for some cakes, more on that later, They then head back and parked near The Boot Inn, near Briar Cottage Moorings and walked down to Kingswood Junction.
In the mean time Antony and I move the boat back up the Grand Union via the Shrewley Tunnel, and a quick stop to let Obi have a wee, we pass a couple of old wooden boats, possibly ready for some brave sole to restore? As we arrive at Kingswood Junction we see the girls waiting.
They climb aboard as we turn the corner and we head to the first lock of the day Kingswood Lock 20, and then Lapworth Lock 19, just after which we stop for water.
This older style water point looks like it has been modified a few times, the lock is missing, the flap is stuck, but they have fitted a tap to the side.
The water flow was good, 15 minutes and we had topped up our tank, I cleaned the solar panels off and off we go.
With four people manning the locks, we could have two working on the current lock and two moving ahead to setup the next, or help anyone coming the other way.
It was along these locks that Obi decided to carry a stick across the lock and tipped himself in the water, luckily Antony was near by to grab his harness and drag him out, he rewarded Antony with a dog shake shower and was none the worse for wear.
Here is Briar Cottage Moorings, between locks 13 & 14, where you can stop for a coffee and ice cream when needed.
Between lock 7 & 8 we had just completed lock 8 and were holding in the pound, when we found a boat coming the other way, between 7 & 8 is a ver small pound on a curve, luckily it was a smaller boat with a skilled crew who managed to ease into lock 8 and miss us at the same time.
The cakes from Wedges Bakery cut up so we can each try a bit with a nice cup of tea.
We had Toffee, Chocolate and Lemon cupcakes and a slice of Bakewell. They did not last long – seem like we will be stopping here when we pass this way again (Remember Bridge 20, North Stratford Canal)
Our target for today was to get to Dickens Heath, it is an odd feeling place, a bit like Poundbury in Dorset, but with less shops. We moored up just below Dickens Heath Village Footbridge No 14 and the girls went to collect Marys car, we then went out to The Drawbridge Inn for dinner, lots of food at a relatively cheap price.
Back to the boat and Ellie and Antony have to head off back home as they have visitors arriving.
Sunday 24nd Aug 2024 – Now just the three of us and Obi, but Mary is going home this morning as she has work booked for Tuesday. We decide she will take Obi home with her for company. Obi also finds the chugging sessions between lock flights a little stressful, only made up by helping us on the locks by running about trying to herd up all together. We are probably a slow few days for him till we get to the Tardebigge locks.
We went for Coffee in Coffee Cloud, a good coffee and a bacon sandwich always starts the day well, then noticed the Tesco Express was closed for refurbishment which was a bit of a shame, and was already passed the expected reopening day according to the Tesco’s web site.
We carried Obi and Marys stuff back to her car and we are now down to just the two of us. But we are going to have one more set of visitor before we leave Dickens Heath, with Jason and Nicola, bringing three of the grandchildren to see us.
We meet them in town outside Cloud Coffee and walk across the bridge near the boat to an small area of grass to site and chat while feeding the grandchildren, they have twins under one and a five year old, they are doing remarkably, not sure I could cope.
Then just as suddenly we are back to just the two of us, our plan now is to stay one more night and try to head to the top of the Tardebigge tomorrow, if we don’t get that far it is not a problem we just want to be fresh and ready for the Tardebigge flight as this will be the first time we have done this on our own.
Before I close for the day, we opened the weed hatch and using a tool we purchased at Crick in 2023 from Miracle Leisure Products called a Prop Mate is worked very well, we removed a few shredded plastic bags and some weed etc without even getting my hands wet.
