A thoroughly wet day! The forecast this morning (different from even last night) was for continuous rain until around 4 pm, after which it would be dry. Actually, the rain did stop just about on cue but, alas, the forecasters forgot to tell it about the dry-for-the-rest-of-the-day bit as it resumed about 45 minutes later.
Driving on the motorway was tedious and rather slow - Andrew eventually gave us an ETA of midday at Droitwich Spa Marina, he had taken a different route than originally planned and was a little earlier. This meant Mike had to forgo the mug of coffee that was almost made and set off post haste.
They met up as expected and drove back to Fazeley Mill in Andrew's car. T his will make the end of the trip car shuffle a bit speedier.
By the time they arrived back at the boat and unloaded the pile of bags Andrew had acquired from his local market we were all ready for Christine's soup - red pepper. She had also walked up to the nearby Tesco Express but it was a bit of a disappointment, especially on the bread front. At least they had a newspaper.
It was around 2.30 before we unplugged the boat from the shore line and cast off. We had planned to fill the fuel tank before leaving but another boat had just arrived and wanted both pump out and fuel. We waited a shirt while but it was clear that they were not leaving any time soon so we went out of the marina entrance and tied up on the towpath so that we could return the marina its gate key and also empty the elsan.
Finally we were properly away and headed own towards Birmingham (well, given we were at Fazeley and the canal's name is Birmingham and Fazeley, what else could we do?!)
After about 45 minutes we reached the bottom of the long flight of locks - many of which are quite spread out.
The new brand colour has even reached here. When first announced earlier this year, the impression was given that it would be rolled out as items needed replacing in the normal on-going maintenance but it does seem to have popped up in most places rather quickly!
We came up three of the locks and moored just beyond the pub and some rather good visitor moorings which were largely empty.
In the wall alongside the third lock we saw what may well have been a small hut for a lock keeper to shelter in. It came complete with central heating (!). As ou can see, frain does not make a good day for photography . . .
Time now to prepare dinner - as we were travelling yesterday we opted for our weekly roast tonight.
3.6 Miles - 3 Locks
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