We both slept well and woke up to a cooler, cloudier morning.
After breakfast, we walked up to the little shop in the Round House. It is an absolute treasure trove, an Aladdin's cave of canal related books. maps, mugs, pinnies etc.The lady who runs it is called Eileen and is a delight. We were very pleased to find yet more books in the "Working Waterways Series", which includes the four "Idle Women" books. R was given the first of the "Idle Women" books for Christmas and we have since aquired the other nine books in the Working Waterways Series - the last four from the Round House! They are all first class reading and provide very striking portrayals of the working life on the Cut in the 1940s and 1950s.
We set off late morning for a gentle day's cruising. At Cross Green by the Fox and Anchor, an angling competition was in progress for "seniors" and there was one angler after another on the towpath for several hundred yards. Each one is obliged to pull his rod in to let boats pass. This leads to a rather uneasy truce between boaters and anglers! Despite the interruption, they are invariably good-humoured towards us and we always thank them. We smiled and said "Thank You" so many times that we decided that it must be how the Queen feels as she sails past in a carriage!
M was delighted to bag an "Eddie" crossing the canal on the M54 motorway bridge - "Rebecca Louise".
The last few hundred yards of today's cruise was through the "Pendeford Rockin", the old boatman's name for the very narrow cutting hewn by Brindley's navvies through the solid sandstone outcrop that breaks through the clay strata at this point.
One always prays not to meet another boat coming the other way as there are only a couple of passing places. Unfortunately, it is the first bit of canal that novice hirers encounter as they leave Napton Boats base at Autherley. A baptism of fire indeed!
Luckily we had a clear run and moored up just south of the narrows beside a housing estate that sits between the Staffs & Worcs canal and the Shropshire Union. In the centre of the estate is a large Morrisons. We have visited it before from the Shroppie side, but never from this side so we were not sure how to find it.
However, as we set off, we espied a young lad pushing his small sister in a Morrisons' trolley and, when we enquired, he confirmed that he was returning the trolley (but not his sister) to Morrisons - so we followed him.
In Morrisons, the headline of the local newspaper immediately caught our eye. Apparently the nearby Wolverhampton flight of 21 locks had been emptied the previous day by vandals. This was the route that Mick and Jackie on Zodiak were planning to do today. A quick phone call confirmed that the C&RT guys had been quick to respond and, although the C&RT were still working to restore normal water levels, Mick and Jackie had gone up the flight without problem.
Today: 7 miles, 0 locks and 4.1 hours.
Trip: 29 miles, 15 locks and 17.3 hours.
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