Below Brick Kiln Lock

Up and away by 7:20. Passed ‘Uncle Mort’ about 1/4 mile ahead of us – no sign of life. Does anyone know why the bridge at the tail of Awbridge lock is like this? It’s unique on the canal. Lovely day today, sun all day. Sat out in the evening sunshine with a glass of

Rocky Lock

Busy day meeting people. Sister in law Val & brother in law are caravanning in Bewdley and so came up to meet us at Kinver. Into the Vine for a pint where we were joined by Andrew (aka Capt Beeky) & Shiela off of’ Uncle Mort. Uncle Mort is going to Stafford Boat Club for

Wolverley

Almost a month since the last entry. I have had another birthday, but the only present I’ve brought with me is a crock-pot. We’ll use that tomorrow. No water in the bow when we arrived so I’ve Hammerited all the metal surfaces up under the foredeck and re-assembled the word work. Lots of moving boats

Engine service

The engine was due for it’s 1000 hour service and we needed to sort out the loss of power problem before venturing onto the Severn again, so I booked a service with Anglo-Welsh at Bromsgrove as they are acredited Isuzu engineers. Their guy Jonathon arrived at about 9:30 and did a very thorough job taking

Home Mooring

I spent most of the day trying to sort out two problems. The first was why the new two-stage charger wasnt working. I concluded that it was broke! The second was trying to find the source of the water that accumulates up under the foredeck. For at least 6 months we have been getting water

Wolverley

As we were in no hurry to return to Kidderminster we decided to go for a longish (~6 miles ) walk before breakfast. The route was to take us via the Hyde, through Chase Wood, past Stourton Hall Farm, through the woods in Hampton valley to Gothersley farm and back along the tpwpath. We have

Hyde Lock

A few boats about today, but not as many as yesterday. It was strange doing the Bratch locks all on our own with no lock keeper, no gongoozlers and no other boats. The weather was a bit warmer, but still cloudy. We noticed lots of Little Grebes on the canal today. We saw four in

Compton

Woke up to a bright morning with a greater spotted woodpecker drumming away on a tree just across the cut. Of course by the time I’d got the camera he flown away 🙁 We didnt see any moving boats yesterday but we passed four before 10 o’clock today. It was about 12:30 when we arrived

Marsh Lock, Swindon

Arrived last night to find that the trickle charger hadn’t been working properly so the batteries were flat again. It appears not to be producing any output so i suppose I’ll have to send it back. We set off about 9 o’clock. We indend to take a couple of days going up to Compton to

Kinver

Arrived last night to find the boat warmer than pervious visits and the battery topped up so the heater and the trickle charger are obviously working. A fairly lazy start, we set off about nineish heading for Kinver, mainly to give the engine a bit of a run and to get a pumpout. Stopped breifly