Hardingswood

Today's Canal - Trent and Mersey

The day began very grey and, apart from a brief brighter spell around lunch time, remained that way until the arrival of rain! We also needed extra layers of clothing today.

Late last night we spotted a strange illuminated circular cartoon image on the opposite side of the canal from our mooring. It was too dark to work out what it was but in the daylight we could see it on the front of this bungalow. We have no idea what it is nor why it is displayed!

Mike did a little bit more maintenance work but neither of us was inclined to an early start and it was well after 10 before we cast off - our mooring was in the distance beyond the first bridge we passed but it does show just how grey the morning was.

Just after Bridge 139 is a small CaRT maintenance depot, largely used to store specialist materials for repairing locks and other works. A work pan was being pumped out - ready to receive some new lock gates to be transported to the site of an upcoming stoppage we were told.

As we passed over Snapes Aqueduct we passed a coffee shop on water - not really looking for customers at this stage, however.

After 20 minutes we arrived at the bottom of the Lawton Locks - we could see from a distance that work was under way.

Up close we could see that the top gate of the right hand lock had been replaced. A 'team meeting' was in progress, no doubt plotting the next moves. As we came up the lock, the team started to lift out the stop planks above the lock but were taking it slowly so that they could check that the gate was fitting properly once under pressure. They also explained that one bottom paddle at the next lock (and above it later appeared) was locked off to prevent sudden rushes of water into the work area. The short pound was also being kept quite low.

Between the third and fourth locks there is a winding hole. This is a bit unusual in the middle of a flight -today there is no obvious reason for it, who would want to come down several locks just to turn around and go back up? Later, we looked at old OS maps and there was once a smithy alongside the winding hole. Things that look unusual often have an interesting explanation.

The first of the Church Locks, two, once doubled, looks as if it has two working sets of gates but the one to the left has been like this and non-functioning for some years now.

We continued up to Red Bull Wharf where we planned to use the services. (At the last two locks there was a couple of lock keepers to assist, We must say that they went out of their way to be helpful but clearly followed the guidelines to ensure that they knew what we wanted them to do and when) By the time we had finished with the emptying and filling, lunch was calling - second day for the first of Christine's autumnal soups. So we pulled back a boat length to the adjacent visitor moorings, surprisingly completely empty.

Afterwards, Mike finished off today's window stint and also effected a small repair to one of the galley window blinds where one of the guide wires had come adrift. Not quite as easy as it might have been and required rather more dismantling than one might imagine.

Mid afternoon we set off once more, with just a couple more locks to the moorings below the top lock at Hardingswood. We found a spot with possible tv reception in case we ended up here for the night. The initial reason for the stop was to walk the short distance to Tesco where we stocked up once more. We saw nb Harnser moored even closer to the bridge but no-one seemed in and we planned to say hello on our way back. As we started out we saw a couple carrying their own shopping and it turned out that they were Brian and Diana - surprisingly we did not recognise them from the tiny photos their blog!

We had not expected to see them - yesterday's blog put them on the Macc and what puzzled us was that they were pointing uphill. All was explained when we read their blog a short time before writing this one!

When we emerged from Tesco we discovered that it had started to rain, not heavy but persistent. As a result, when we arrived back at the boat neither of us was at all interested in going up just one lock - we would probably be too late for Harecastle Tunnel today in any event. And we did get a tv signal which was a little surprising with all the surrounding trees. We were fortunate that the gap was in just the right direction!

2.7 Miles - 11 Locks