Long Itchington

A very grey start to the day, such a contrast to yesterday.   However it was much milder and it was not pouring with rain (just some light drizzle) so one must be thankful for small mercies.

We had the 6 Fosse Locks and 4 Bascote locks to tackle to reach our intended destination of Long Itchington.

Coming up the first lock we thought it was a mist rising from the canal but I smelt smoke as we went past and I think it was someone's bonfire.  John had returned to Epiphany the previous day so we were travelling in company again (Fi still absent in hospital)

This meant Geoff had plenty of exercise......but he cannot complain as a few weeks ago when we were on the rivers he was yearning to be back on the canals so he could have more exercise with locks and walking the towpaths.

                                     

                                           

The dreary weather did not improve throughout the morning and my attempt to capture some of the autumnal colours along the canal was not wildly successful.

At one time these double locks had a single lock alongside but some have been filled in 

and some just blocked off at the ends

When possible John got off Epiphany to give Geoff a hand

 but mostly we were just using one gate to reduce the workload.  Here we are almost at the last lock of the day, entering the bottom of the staircase of two to rise us to the top of the Bascote Locks.

Almost there

Looking back

It was just a short way then to the planned mooring at Long Itchington which we both thought we remembered from last year.....however it looked nothing like our memory told us, which was par for the course for me but strange for Geoff who normally has a good memory for places....maybe it was because the sun had been shining last time and also the fact that we had been coming in the opposite direction!!

In the afternoon we were pleasantly surprised to find Iron Butterfly with Dave and Pam aboard hovering alongside us knocking in the hull.  Iron Butterfly is their second boat built by Darren Aldridge our boat builder.  

They moored up and came aboard for coffee and a catch up and tomorrow morning we are going to inspect the new boat.......

Later Tony & Di Fletcher arrived to allow us to help them celebrate their wedding anniversary.  Tony and Geoff were each other's best men at their respective weddings, so since they live relatively close by it seemed a good plot for the evening.  After a couple of bottles of Bubbly on board we repaired to the Two Boatmen for a meal.  It was good pub grub in very convivial surroundings, just how a pub should be and with good company...what more could one want.

In our normal fashion we had forgotten to take a torch so it was a dark walk back home to Petroc, luckily not too great a distance.......