Bartimaeus

It’s been very sunny for most of this week, and at times even quite warm.  It was a lot less bright this morning so we were a little reluctant to get going.  When a boat came past, I wondered about suggesting we set off so that we could join them in the staircase lock, but we weren’t quite ready.  A while later I saw another boat pass and suggested we should join them.  We started to get ready, but as soon as I got on to the back deck I realised that there was another boat coming – they already had a partner for the locks.

We were energised enough to continue to set off, but with a little less urgency.  We caught up with them at the Bunbury Staircase locks.  They were sufficiently far ahead that I was able to empty the lower lock to let Clare in.  She managed to drive in before they had filled the upper lock.

Even when the sun poked through the cloud it wasn’t warm.  This was perhaps because of the partial eclipse in progress.  We knew not to stare at the sun though, and without doing so we couldn’t tell it was happening.  The staircase has been repaired since we passed through in the other direction last year.  The paddle gear was freshly oiled and everything moved easily.

We passed a nesting swan soon after – the first we’ve seen this year.

We hadn’t gone much further when we reached the Calveley Service Station.  There were two boats already moored there – the ones who had been ahead of us in the lock.  As we approached, one of the boaters asked if we wanted to come in.  I said yes, and he promptly set about casting off.

Once moored up, we started filling the water tank and put our glass bottles in the recycling bins.  By the time the water was full the other boat had moved off.  That allowed us to move forward to use the pump out.  Unfortunately, this was on the “wrong” side (we needed to insert the gun/probe on the water side) and the hose wasn’t very long.  By moving Bartimaeus so that the front fender overlapped with the one on the back of a poorly placed boat in front, we were just able to get things connected.

Once the tank was empty we had the awkward business of extracting the hose.  It requires a firm upward lift, but I don’t want to wave it around when it comes free, and I’m standing on a narrow ledge above the canal.  I repeated a trick that had worked previously.  Wrapping a rope around the probe allows a more direct lift to be applied.  Clare climbed on to the roof to pull up on the rope.  With hardly any cross words we got things sorted.

With tanks emptied and filled, we had done the essentials for the next few days.  It was hardly any distance to the cheese shop and cafe.  These are associated with the nearby cheese factory whose roof was blown off in the winter storms.  We had lunch and returned to the boat with local cheese and local beer.

By now there was very light rain falling, but we hardly got wet driving the short distance to a mooring just beyond the Barbridge Junction.  The forecast for tomorrow is summer time!