Lapworth Locks......not a layover day!

Having taken Barney for his early morning stroll I settled myself back in bed with my cup of tea all prepared for a nice lie in ......................................WRONG.   Geoff decided that we should push on and do the Lapworth locks today.  So being the obedient crew that I am we were away by 8.30.

I even said I would do the first lifting bridge which was a mistake as it was very stiff and took far too many turns to lift the tiddly little bridge.

Unfortunately a boat moored ahead of us had left even earlier so all the locks were against us.  Still they are in a nice setting and still single locks.  The possibility of a shower spoken of in the forecast did not appear and it is still incredibly mild.  In fact we have had several very warm days recently.

We met a couple of boats coming up which makes passing in some of the short pounds quite interesting.

After 13 locks we moored below lock 33 where there are 48 hour moorings as I wanted to visit the canal shop nearby.  I was also in need of my morning cup of coffee.  The shop also sells home made cakes and I bought us a piece each which sadly has to be kept until tomorrow as today is one of our 2 days (doing the 5 and 2 diet!)

The moorings are not unpleasant and I casually suggested we call it a day as it was about 12.30 by then but no luck...Geoff was determined to carry on.

and so to the last lock, our 19th of the day

We pulled across to use the sani station where we had to wait for someone to finish.   A reverse out of there and onward we went and turned onto the Grand Union.   If we had had more time it would have been nice to carry straight on down to Stratford but that will have to wait for another year.

Once we were round the corner I was sent to sit in my preferred position in the bow to watch the world go by.   Geoff had a mooring place in mind which we reached after about 3/4 of an hour.  Quite up to our standard....lovely and open, not hemmed in by trees.  

AND TOMORROW I AM PROMISED A LAYOVER DAY!    We shall see.

Total distance:4.1 miles 

Elapsed time:5h35m40s 

Locks:19

Bridges:15 
Average speed:1.05 mph (3.61 lock/mph)