We were lying in bed at ten to eight when a boat went past. I looked out of the window and saw Terry & Chris going past on Arun, so we decided to get up and set off with the chance that we might meet up with them later. We were away by 8:15 and just caught a glimpse of them leaving Wightwick lock as we approached. There was one boat between us but we thought that there would be a good chance that would be able to have a natter later. Just before Dimmingsdale lock the boat infront moored up, but as we approached the lock we could see Arun leaving and another boat waiting to go down. There was a third boat moored on the offside mooring. As we joined the queue to go down the steerer of this third boat said that he was before us. Heddi had a free & frank exchange of views with him regarding lock queueing etiquette! Talking later to the crew of the boat infront of us it turned out that the other boat had tried to push in front of them as well.

As we arrived at Bratch Arun was just entering the top lock so we had chance for a natter as we went down. The rest of the day was spent queueing at every lock. The wait at the Botterham staircase was almost two hours. That gave us time to agree with Terry that we would have a few drinks together in a Kinver pub that evening, if we got that far!

The weather was pretty awful most of the day, with very heavy storms with queues at every lock.

We eventually arrived at Kinver just before six. Terry was waiting to work us through the lock. We found a space on the visitor’s mooring (just).

Later, in the evening we spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the Plough & Harrow.