Bradley Green

Today's Canal : Coventry

Much of the day was bright and sunny with plenty of blue patches on the sky. By late afternoon, more cloud arrived and accompanied by quite a stiff breeze.

Opposite our overnight mooring was another entrant into the canal view mannequins displays. These were more realistic than most and when glimpsed accidentally through a half open bathroom window, could be rather startling! We also noted the ethnic diversity usually absent in other displays.

We had a zoom meeting (catch-up with a friend) at ten for the standard 45 minute free session. Zoom has made so much difference to the way in which we can keep in touch even when there are few opportunities for F2F chats.

As we passed under the first bridge we could see a lady enthusiastically feeding the swans and ducks. She chatted to us last evening as she was walking along the towpath when we had just moored. It seems that this is very much her 'thing' but she also told us that she has had to put up a low wire fence by the water as sometimes, especially the swans, the birds can get a bit too boisterous!

It was only a few hundred metres, if that, to the top lock and a volunteer lockie was standing eagerly awaiting more traffic. (Yesterday they had 19 boats through, a bit down on their average for this time of the year.) However, we had to signal that we were not using the ,lo ck immediately as we needed to vist the rubbish and elsan facilities just above.

Eventually we did start down the flight - we were told that there were five volunteers on duty today and, indeed, we had assistance at each of the first five locks. So, we opted for Christine to help with the lock operation, to see how well she was mending.

You might well say to this photo, "What, no steerer?" If, dear reader, yo look very closely - get out the magnifier of zoom tool - and you will see that Christine is down with the lockie at the bottom gates and then guess that Mike was actually holding he camera! If he is quick about it, there is just enough time to nip off the stern, take a picture and then pop back on again before the water level has dropped too far!

What, do we hear you say? You don't have a magnifier or was it that you could not be bothered to try? Well, you don't get away with it that easily so we have done the work for you and you can check what we meant!

The volunteers here today were an excellent team, all well trained and provided just the right amount of help, almost without having to ask about it. Here, one was giving directions about opening the bottom paddles to a crew member from a boat waiting below - he did seem to need them!

Lock 5 has a slightly different overflow.

Noon and we moored up below this lock - a well known place to stop to access the town shops. We walked down the main street to a non-Greggs independent bakery shop which we had heard was popular. (Actually, a Greggs has opened in the shop next door!)

Then back to Tesco, the main supermarket in town. (Well, there is also an Aldi but we don't talk about that) There have been few opportunities to stock up since we left Trinity Marina and it will be several days before another chance presents itself. Back to the boat with our plunder and it was time for lunch.

Mid afternoon and we thought that we would try and go through as much of the remainder of the Atherstone flight  (11 locks) as we could manage. Unusually, there are a number of mooring places in the flight, especially in the ,longer pounds. The bottom six locks are grouped into pairs close together.

There is to be a one day stoppage on Thursday to repair the top gate footboard. If you can look closely, the far support bracket has sheared right through and the board is leaning at quite an angle. With no easy access from one side of the lock to the other apart from over the top and bottomgates, it is rather hard to operate safely if one board fails.

A bright sunny afternoon and progress was helped by a steady stream of upcoming boats which which to swap locks.

The last footbridge before the bottom of the flight is called on older maps Whitley Bridge but it does seem to have had little purpose at least for the last century. Whilst it looks ornate, it has clumsy metal gates at either end to prevent access and should anyone be daft enough to climb over, there is no floor to the bridge!

We did not have firm plans for a mooring tonight as we were not sure how far we would make it down the flight. However, we had made it and could go on further but immediately below the locks is a good stretch of moorings with rings (but not labelled as an official time limited visitor mooring) There was plenty of room, including the very first set of rings. The next full set of boater services is at the next bridge and so it seemed sensible to give ourselves the opportunity for a top up stop tomorrow.

2.4 Miles - 11