Busy few days….

Saturday was car collection day again, courtesy of Enterprise at Lichfield. A bit of shopping, then relax before a demanding day on Sunday.

We were in Sheffield at 08:45 on Sunday and on the way back by 11:45. In the interim I’d competed in the Great Yorkshire Run, a city-centre 10k.  I say compete… Though not bad I suppose. 800^th overall and 15^th in my age group.

And I didn’t get overtaken by any running bananas or Mr Men! That’s a result in itself!

After my previous post mentioning overstayers at Fradley I felt a bit hypocritical when we did the same on Sunday night. Though in my defence it was mid-afternoon by the time we got back, then I had to shower, eat, take Meg for a walk, eat again and by this time it was starting to get dark. I couldn’t face the 3 or 4 locks that would drop us down to Alrewas.

We moved down to Alrewas on Monday, Meg and I taking the car there first then walking back to bring the boat down.

We went up to the wharf for water and tank emptying, up Junction Lock, winded and came back down again, then through Keepers, Hunts and Common Locks before mooring up above Bagnall Lock on the edge of the village.

Leaving Fradley

Windy at Common Lock

We all piled into the car in the afternoon and drove across to see my folks over in Sileby near Loughborough. I was able to pick up my new camera while we were there, so the pictures might improve a bit. Not necessarily the quality, but the composition should be better now I can see what I’m pointing the thing at! The LCD backlight died on my old one coming across The Ribble Link.

Yesterday we went up to Yorkshire, lunch with Mags’ grand-daughter Nichola and her husband Arthur, then to the clinic for Mags’ annual review with the Doc. All’s well, she’s not to go back till next April for another check-up.

Unfortunately we left Bentham at a quarter past four, reaching the M6 as the traffic started to build up. The weather was a bit grim, too, rain and drizzle being sprayed up from all the vehicles. It must have caught someone out; both north and southbound carriageways were closed following an accident near Warrington.

We diverted off to skirt the east side of Manchester and drop down through the Peak District, but there were a lot of others with the same idea, making progress slow.

We finally made it back to the boat at 20:15, 4 hours to cover 150 miles.

We’ve had a day off today, whether we move or not tomorrow has yet to be decided. See what the weather does.

Locks 5, miles 2