Seyella's Journey

Saturday August 19th 2006
Early start to make up for time lost yesterday, moved off at 08:10 and had a good run down to and through Hoo Mill lock. Pleasant rural countryside, then getting busy with moored boats as we approached Great Haywood.

Dropped off the rubbish at the junction, then had to queue for Haywood lock (¾ hr) and Colwich lock (1¼ hr). Gave Bruno a chance to make some more friends, though.

When we opened Colwich lock gates to leave the chamber, there was a boat trying to get in before we got out! Turned out that his gearbox cable had snapped so he couldn’t engage reverse gear to stop. Anyway, got him roped in to the quay and pressed on to Rugeley.
As we entered the town a local church started ringing it’s bells. I don’t think it was for us, though we found that Bruno liked them. He spent a good 10 minutes "singing" along! He often howls in tune with emergency vehicle sirens, but this was the first time he accompanied church bells!
We stopped at bridge 66 and topped up the stores from Morrisons, only 5 minutes from the canal, but it felt a lot longer carrying all that shopping.
Finished the day at Handsacre at about 18:30, our longest day yet.

Saw some giant rhubarb near Little Haywood…

13½ miles, 5 locks.

PS. Came across Clive on NB Blue Moon again. He was the chap who gave us a tow the previous day. Noticed he was using a Kirstan mini satellite dish and asked him how it performed. He said he’d been out for 3 months, and only failed to pick up a signal once, because of buildings. I’d bought a 12 volt digibox and a cheap dish, and hadn’t been able to set it up once! Something else for the shopping list, I guess.