Tamworth(ish)

Time to move on, the cupboards need restocking so we were Tamworth bound,

leaving our mooring on a glorious  morning.

 

 The 1st day of Autumn & the leaves are definitely on the turn

 Looking back at the M42, we have driven over it many times,

 it's nice to be cruising under it this time.

 The Glascote locks were busy, no water wasted as it was one up one down.

 The aqueduct over the River Tame

 

 & a pillbox left over from the 2nd world war, just in case the enemy tried to invade by canal.

Onto the Birmingham & Fazeley canal at Fazeley Junction, it's left under Watling Street Bridge for Birmingham but we're heading north west.

We stopped just before Sutton Road Bridge as planned & once moored  walked up to the Ventura Retail Park & did a biggish shop at Asda. Tomorrow we shall nip back up to the shops for a paper & try to get Mark some new footwear, he hates shopping so I expect a long face. Then onwards to see if we can find a nice quiet spot for the rest of the weekend.

Traffic jam on the Atherstone flight

We had our stroll up to Aldi yesterday & I'm glad we did as I got myself a pair of these thermal trousers, they will come in useful when winter cruising. :-)

 This morning the sun shone as we moved on to the water point at 8.30am, there was not a lot of point in being any earlier as the top lock is chained up until 8.30am & locked again at 4pm, as a water saving measure. As we filled the water tank 2 boats, nbs Compton & Uncle Mort went down & we followed at 9.30am

  The top lock was the only one we had to fill as we met a steady stream of boats coming up & it was all going well until we got to lock 6 where we came across nb Uncle Mort in the lock.

The pound between 6 & 7 had been emptied overnight as both sets of paddles had been left open on lock 7 ( which takes a fair amount of stupidity!) The water level was still down & Uncle Mort, being deep draughted, had been unable to exit the lock so they were refilling the lock.They reversed out & we went in, fortunately  we are shallow drafted & we managed to exit okay. 

 The queue was growing waiting to go up... 

 ...with an even longer queue at the bottom lock. 

I was surprised at the number of boats coming up, it felt like a bank holiday!

As we had been lucky with most of the locks in our favour it had only taken us 2 hours to do the 11 locks, the boats going up would be taking a fair bit longer.

 We noticed the wind was getting up & Mark had a job on to keep us from being blown into the bank so when we came through bridge 50 & spotted a likely looking mooring on some pilings we pulled in. It's about a mile & a half into Polesworth so we shall stay here for tomorrow. I need to get some washing done & Mark will walk into the village for any supplies.
 Just as I was typing a few minutes ago nb Uncle Mort has gone past so the water level must have improved. It is really windy now & Poppy is creaking & rocking, but we have a TV signal, a good internet signal & may light a fire later so it can blow all it wants :-)