Up at Dawn

Well that what it felt like.....the mornings are getting darker and I was presented with a cup of tea at 0615!
However I was in agreement about the necessity for the early start.  There are a lot of boats travelling at the moment and we have 5 single locks on the first stage of today's journey.  John heroically surfaced for the departure just after 7 and together we managed to do all 5 locks before anyone else was on the go.  
We met our first boat just before the junction.

Fradley is where we parted company with the Trent & Mersey and took a left turn down the Coventry Canal.  It is an attractive junction and we have moored here previously.  No time for that today as Fazely Junction was our next goal.  This is where we would leave the Coventry and head into Birmingham via the Birmingham and Fazely canal.  Once again plenty of boats around, so many more than we have seen all summer.  Parts of the Coventry are quite narrow and there are a lot of moored boats so the going was slow at times and interesting at times when we had to pass another boat.
Part way along a boat approached us with the helmsman gesticulating madly and it took us some time to recognise that it was friends Tina and Klim on their new boat Brindley.   Luckily we were in a suitable spot to moor up briefly so that we could have the guided tour.   It is a lovely boat and stupidly I forgot to take a photograph.
Epiphany had overtaken us during our stopover so we reached Fazely some time after them.   Not knowing how much mooring there would be at the junction itself we chose to moor about half a mile short in the open.
We did have a phone call from John a little while later saying he had gone on beyond the junction and that it was lovely and open, plenty of grass for Barney and they had a satellite picture.  However by this time we also had a satellite picture and Geoffrey was fast asleep.......has to have his afternoon siesta........a throwback to when he first joined the RAF and he was stationed in Malta  where they started work at the crack of dawn and finished early so that everyone could siesta during the heat of the afternoon...pity we don't have the heat.....