TRIP REPORTS

SPRING 2007 — SOUTHWARDS FROM BIRMINGHAM

Part 3 - To the CIBC rally at Stockton

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We continue the story from a mooring at The Moorings, Leamington, whence I had gone to Berkhamsted for a couple of days to take part in a Planning Appeal hearing.

Wendy shopped & got to know some of the pub staff. Sainsbury's garage here hadn't logs, but Wendy did buy more kindling wood as an insurance. I returned, exhausted, on Wednesday evening.

I woke up late after the last tiring couple of days, so started later than expected at 11:20 . We needed a weed-hatch stop below Radford bottom lock - clothes (perfectly decent, no need to chuck), plastic, thick rope and a thick and noisy twig. Between Itchington Bottom lock and Shop Lock we paused to exchange pleasantries with Guy and Connie on Virgo. We stopped in Shop Lock to buy coal & gas from Warwickshire Fly Boats. Another boat had to wait while we did so before they could come down the lock.

We stopped opposite the Blue Lias, Stockton, to take on water. It was a very fast tap, and Wendy got drenched. Then we pulled over to the pub moorings at 17:40. We managed to get the last mooring on the bank, with our fore-end and centre rope moored to the pub's land and our back-end sticking out opposite the next-door meadow.

I'd intended to travel to London this evening, but was so tired that I decided that it would be easier to travel early in the morning. We ate at the pub (jolly good) and asked them about fixing a taxi to Rugby station in the morning. The pub landlord was so surprised at what the taxi firm was going to charge that he offered to run Mike there himself for considerably less. We chatted with Mike and Pat from The Nuggler. The Dykes and the Kroekers were also in the pub.

I went off at 07:00 with the pub landlord to catch my train to London for a day hosting a school group at the LCM, which went very well. Wendy walked quite a long way into the old centre of Long Itchington for newspapers and lunched at the Blue Lias. Brian and Diana on Harnser moored outboard of us and found a better mooring-point for the back-end. Wendy socialised with them and with Glen Peckett who is here by camper-van. One of the pub staff told Wendy how to find a much nearer newsagent, this side of the canal beyond WFB shop.

I arrived back at about 21:00. We ate on board then I went for the last hour at the pub with the assembled hordes of CICB.

On Saturday morning Wendy went searching for a newsagent, and wondered whether the path past the reservoir might lead there. It didn't, but there were patches of very vivid violets, and friendly anglers. Back to the towpath, she crossed the lock and found no newsagent but the end of the track and parked cars near Virgo's mooring. So she crossed the bridge, resigned to the trip to Long Itchington church again, but was helped by a kindly gentleman with a Jack Russell: one can go through a gap in the fence below the lock house, through a domestic garage complex, turn right at the exit and after four or five houses there's a newsagent and a small general store.

The theme of the rally was that it was Christmas, so Saturday evening brought the Christmas dinner (excellent), pantomime, songs & chat.

We heard Harnser moving in plenty of time for us and were of at 08:43. We joined Andrew & Wendy on Lord Toulouse at the locks and discovered that Roger & Margaret Millin had come along to lock-wheel, so we went up the locks very smoothly and quickly, meeting three down-hill boats. Stockton Top Marina (now part of Kate Boats) was busy turning round its hire fleet when we arrived so we had to wait a couple of hours for them to deal with our rudder. The rudder came off very easily and its shaft was very quickly straightened in the workshop (a big hydraulic press, perhaps). Getting the rudder re-mounted proved considerably trickier, and one of the boatyard staff had to don a dry-suit and get in the water to locate the redder in its cup. Two hours' work all told.

Then we moved off just round the corner to The Boat and tied up at 14:35 opposite the pub garden. I had a couple of pints at the pub and booked a taxi to Rugby to go to London for a couple of meetings. Tilly was a might hunter. In the evening Wendy tried the pub again and found the food not up to recent pubs we'd used.