Hunkering down ...

Friday morning ... always the case when you set off in a morning to lock … another boat passes as you start to untie your ropes!  Not to worry though we’ve got all day.

Weeds and overgrown trees make getting a straight line of sight on the first lock of the day difficult

 The wetlands continue on our left

 We catch up with the boater in front at Marston Lane

 Looking back, a very pleasant day but a bit breezy as we climb the locks

Looking back at a single handler working the locks, her boat is currently in lock 5 and she’s walked down to set the lower lock.  Here she is walking back and will open the bottom gate then walk over top lock’s top gate and down the ladder on the left, bring the boat out, make it secure again while she closes the gate, get back on her boat and repeat the process at the next lock.

 Autumn!

Approaching Curdworth Tunnel. We continued to cruise through the next 3 bridges and moored up beyond Wiggins Hill Bridge to await the storm forecast for Sunday night/Monday morning.  We could have moved further during the weekend, but not having been this way before we were unsure of mooring deeper into Birmingham for longer than one night, especially over a weekend.

So .. we hunkered down in the lea of the hedge, no trees close by to fall on the boat when the big wind comes ... and waited!

Saturday brought a phone call from our son to say that they were coming to find us ... and we spent a lovely few hours in their company.

Sunday night when we retired to bed the rain was hammering down on the roof of Rock n Roll but we slept soundly until about 6 am when were were woken up by the plank and pole rest was rattling on the roof in the increasing wind.  George went out to stop the noise with an old towel and we went back to sleep, by 7 am it was calm again, by 8 am a boat cruised past us … and that was it … the big storm was over for us … a bit of a damp squid really, we were luckier than those further south.

Moving off again today - 14 locks to do!