Bartimaeus

The stretch we had done with Catherine had no locks. Since then there have been a few locks, spaced out, but many are in a poor state of repair. I had difficulty with some gates. A couple had the crocheted flowers on them but instead of the bright colours, the recent ones I met matched the lock. The painted wood or metal is usually black and white.

One I met today was a rather old metal gate with rather a lot of rust. I expect it was just coincidence that the flower coordinated well, particularly as Shane drove in, with Bartimaeus.

The gates was very worn on a lock when I was driving. I had been staying forward to avoid the cill, as we went down, but the leaking gates were more likely to catch me. The spray was well forward of the cill.

Leaving the lock I could see broken wood hanging down. It was high enough not be a danger as long as it stays put.

On the way out of another I could see the stonework was pretty worn too. It must have been a tight squeeze before it got carved out, by boats scraping past on the way through at the bottom.

On another the bridge we drove under, some damage has been noticed and was in need of repair, but the boats aren't to blame for the damage this time.

We arrived in Penkridge, where we were going to meet Nick the next day. I did some shopping promptly, it being a Sunday when shops close early, coming back with a full bag. But then Shane informed me there was a cheese boat moored up, so I went to have a look. We didn't need more cheese as we had three already aboard, but I couldn't help but buy more.

Nick fitted a new modbus board, but this did not entirely fix the problem of communication with the control screen, as hoped. He phoned Rob. Rob is going to speak to Simon. As usual I was overloaded with heating system conversation. The simple version is we can use the heating and water systems (by generator or heat pump) but it isn't programmable. Switching it on and waiting works and my shower was perfectly hot. Heating is now something we want more as the weather cools.

I had knitting out to entertain myself while the readings and systems were discussed. Nick was kind enough to ask about how my cardigan was going. I had a pattern instructions that didn't do what I liked either. It seemed to have sizing calculations that worked, but not take into account the impact on the design patterns so it lacked elegance and I am having to tweak it. Nick mused that it was a bit like the problems they were having.

I had to pick back my buttonhole rows as the pattern's description didn't make ones that went over the buttons, so I have done them again with different buttonholes, a slightly frustrating Monday. Still we had a walk to an interesting building in the late afternoon. There were a lot of signs telling people not to approach without permission, so we admired from afar.

The Penkridge moorings are only for two days so the plan was to move today but we went in to explore a little. There was a fine church and a very fine bakery. We bought some tasty products there even though we had an unstarted loaf I had bought and a loaf and some rolls Shane had made the day before. We had early lunch of pasties and I overdid it by having my strawberry and rhubarb cake as well, rather than saving it for later. So thought I should work all the locks to work it off a bit. 

Most of the locks today were wooden, but held together with metal. They were in a sorry state. Some had a stiff turning mechanism, and they were rather leaky.

 At one lock I saw that it needed a bit of filling. I didn't do the other paddle, as it was only about 18 inches down. It really wasn't safe to cross anyway. There was a sign telling you not to use it. I had no intentions of stepping on it, even before I saw the note. I didn't fancy overloading it.

The note said to use the other gates to cross but when one of the bottom gates is open then you can't  cross there but do need to get to the other side. There was a very long walk round and a wall to climb over. The next one was similar in terms of the long walk round and broken wood. It has lost its white paint too.

There was a better looking gate arm in the garden nearby, but it wasn't any good to us. 

It was entertaining having a different issue at each lock and I managed not to get injured or be unable to move them. Shane got out to shut a gate once so I didn't have to walk a very long way round but then it looked like he found it quite effortful to move, so I got lucky there. 

We got done before the rain and were treated to a rainbow at our mooring.