We had a lovely slow start to a beautiful sunny day, taking a walk to Radford Semele for the newspaper. As often in the countryside, it was difficult to find the Observer, but we succeeded.
We set out just past 12 to wonderful sunshine, a slight chill and a little wind, but lovely. We travelled 5.5 miles and 10 locks, and other than a few in a flight, all the locks were relatively evenly spaced in the journey. At one, a family of mum, dad and two little girls were having a picnic on the green. They took much delight in working the gates. Wonderful for us! One of the pictures is the approach to Wood Lock, showing the stupendous views of today.
The really interesting bit was Bascote Locks, including a staircase lock, where the top gate of one lock is the bottom gate of the other. The one picture shows this daunting small flight, and the other, looks at the very deep gates from the bottom lock to the upper lock. We enjoyed that a pair of ducks travelled through the staircase with us. Elizabeth, at the helm while Pete worked the lock, was worried that the ducks would get stuck in between the gates, so gave them a little of the morning's bread. Needless to say, they did not get stuck!
Josie braved the elements and her own fear today and spent a little time travelling out on deck. You can see that she's not exactly relaxed, but making it outside to travel is a real achievement.
We moored at at Long Itchington just after 3:30 and went to have a drink and read our Sunday paper at the Two Boats pub. As we sat outside, Lady Lydia moored up. As we were preparing to leave Saltisford yesterday, she had moored up opposite Bella. It is fun to meet travelling neighbours!
As this is written, Pete is steaming the Sunday ham on Squirrel, we're both feeling a little warmth on our faces from some sunburn and Josie is asleep, highly relieved that the engine is off and we're moored for the night.
