Saturday 17th August 2013

No rain at the beginning of the day but lots of lock practice for Chris and Tim. The flight of 16 locks does have some mooring in between some of the locks which allowed a trip into the village to buy the newspaper and a visit to the excellent craft shop on the wharf. 

One thing which surprised us was the speed and ferocity of the water coming down the by-pass by each lock. It really pushed the boat to the side. The weather was mixed. sunny, cloudy, spitting with rain, a bit heavier and that was within half an hour.

Tim keeping an eye on Chris.

Chris working hard.

Tim had others duties including swabbing the deck!

The hotel boat caught up with us as we were having lunch so we walked up to watch it going through a lock. The 'hotel' is actually 2 boats and the latter 'butty' has no motor. It needs to be bow hauled through the locks. This man was certainly putting his back into it.

Then the rain came! One minute we were sitting outside eating ice creams paid for in an honesty box and taken from the freezer. The next minute there was torrential rain. 

Let's hope tomorrow is better!