Bartimaeus

On Sunday, we moved on along the canal in the general direction of the supermarket I had visited twice already.  I'd spotted a quiet mooring place with full sun which turned out to have a resident moorhen also.  The weather was brighter than forecast, so the panels were soaking up the power.  I was wanting to check out the mooring options further ahead, but Clare didn't fancy a bike ride, so I got out the folder.

I set off along the towpath noting good mooring spots when I found them.  The bike started to feel slightly strange after a while and I wondered if I had a puncture.  I checked the back tyre but it was very solid so I pressed on. I'd got to about ten miles away and reached the limit of my inquisitiveness when I realised that it was the front tyre that was completely flat.  I weighed up my options for getting back and quickly concluded that seeing what happened if I rode on carefully was probably my best bet.  I came back along a railway path and found the bike behaved well.

When I got back I took the wheel off to look for the puncture.  I pumped the tyre up and listened for hissing.  When I found none I tried dunking it in the canal to look for bubbles - still nothing.  I put the bike away hoping for the best.

Yesterday morning, we moved on again.  I waved a boat past that appeared just as we had cast off. We were not far from the first lock of the day when I spotted a boat casting off just ahead of us.  We continued at our now customary crawl and arrived at the lock just as they were entering it.  Clare hopped off to assist while I attached Bartimaeus by the centre strop to a bollard and joined in.  The crew ahead were new to their boat but making a fine job of it.  They wished us a good day as they left.  I assured them they would see us again at the next locks.

Before we were allowed to exit the lock, Clare wanted a photograph of the footprint in the concrete.  Despite this delay I didn't feel any need to step on it to catch the boat in front.  As I had half expected, when we arrived at the Bratch Locks they were waiting on the bollards.  A Canal and River Trust work boat was coming out of the lock and the other boat we'd seen earlier was taking its place.

I left Clare at the helm and went to assist with the triple locks ahead. These locks were originally built as a staircase, but later modified so that they are separate locks with very short pounds between each connected to side ponds.  The operation is surprisingly simple, going up you treat each lock as normal with the simple rule that you don't start emptying the lock above you until you've also started filling the lock you're in.  The instructions actually say to open the blue marked paddles before the corresponding red ones.

The woman on the boat in front of us was extremely worried as she rose in the first of the locks.  The lock-keeper and I both advised her to keep to the back of the lock so that the front of her boat wouldn't get wet.  She spent a lot of effort trying to do that but not get too close to the gate behind her.  Eventually we managed to reassure her that it was safe.  As I had guessed she was worrying about catching on the cill - something that can be catastrophic, but only happens when going down.  Clare had come up to see what was happening by then so between us all we assured her that she was right to worry about the cill, but only when going down.  There were two more identical locks right in front of her, she was able to be a bit more relaxed in those.

Once I'd closed the gate behind her I was able to empty the lock to let Clare and Bartimaeus in.  The locks work amazingly well with the churning water magically filling and emptying the side-ponds through hidden tunnels.  The upper pond is visible from the top lock, the lower pond is on the other side of the road.

We reached the top of the flight at about lunch time as I  had hoped.  What I hadn't noticed was that the long open mooring spot had most of the rings missing.  One of the boats ahead of us had moored up in such a way that we could only moor up easily by using the end of the lock bollards.  I figured they had only stopped for lunch.  Our plan had been to investigate a cafe I had seen the previous day, but instead we lunched on board, and then moved on to the correct rings when they moved on.

In the afternoon we walked in to Wombourne, via the (now shut) cafe and the railway path I'd followed the day before. We located the (also now closed) bakery and an (open!) ice cream parlour.  We explored the church before returning to the canal via another wooded path and thence back along the towpath.

I confirmed that the front tyre had gone flat again, so I worked a bit harder at it.  Once I had taken the inner tube out and dunked it in the basin, I found the puncture very quickly.  I couldn't find any corresponding spike or hole in the tyre, but the repair seems to be effective.

We had a choice of moving the boat or a circular bike ride this morning.  The weather forecast suggested that there may be more showers later in the week, so we settled on boat movement today and we'll look again at cycling options tomorrow.

There were three more locks today, but all simple.  I used the folding bike to cycle up to the bakery before we cast off.  We stopped for lunch after the third and arrived in Wightwick (pronounced Wittick) in the middle of the afternoon.  The sunny weather has got the batteries back up over 95%. We are again on a sunny mooring which will suit Bartimaeus during our imminent trip to Edinburgh.