Seyella's Journey

Thursday we spent relaxing, Friday we moved up through the junction, turning right heading in the direction of Alrewas, and moored just short of Keepers Lock on the visitor moorings. This is handy, as it’s only a few yards from a car park. I took advantage of Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s offer to collect me, and arrived back from Lichfield with a Fiesta a couple of hours later. Having “wheels” allowed me to do a big shop at Morrisons in Lichfield, so the boat is now a couple of inches lower in the water!

We spent Saturday quietly, just a short excursion to Branston Water Park to see how Meg coped with the car. No problem there, luckily. Of course, Saturday night/ Sunday morning is the start of BST, so the early start on Sunday morning was effectively an hour earlier still! I changed all the clocks and set the alarms for 05:00 before going to bed.

We were nearing Stafford by the time the sun was up, and got to Liverpool at around 08:20. But then we had a 30 minute queue to get into the car park! As the last shuttle bus was due to leave at 09:00, I was getting a little wound up! As things turned out, the start was delayed for 20 minutes, so there was plenty of time to prepare. The gun went off at 09:50, it took me 4 minutes to cross the start line, and I was back and changed out of my running gear by 10 to 12. A PB of 1:49:31 means I’ve cracked the challenge of a sub 1:50 ½ marathon I set myself when I started running back in 2004.

I rang Mags to tell her I was finished and OK, she was pleased to hear from me, as she couldn’t find the car! She’d taken Meg down to the race course to watch the runners pass, but couldn’t remember which floor of the multi-storey we’d left the car on. I’d made a mental note, so was able to tell her. By the time she’d found it, I’d hopped a shuttle bus and was back there myself!

It took nearly 1½ hours of queueing to get out of the car park, so with a break on the way, we got back at around 16:00.

This morning I took Meg for a long walk to loosen myself up, but also to give her a chance to run free, as she had been on a lead all day yesterday. Then took the car back to Lichfield and got a lift back. We moved off from Fradley around 12:20, down to Alrewas, winded and back up through Bagnall Lock to moor for the night. We’re now facing in the right direction for our delayed trip up to Manchester. You never know, we might even start it tomorrow!

Locks 5, miles 4.