Mags is sorted and we're moving on.

 Well, Mags went through her Covid test and pre-op last Wednesday without problems. Although there was the usual problem with getting a blood sample - it took two nurses and a doctor and three-quarters of an hour to get enough to test. Mags reckons she's had it a long while and it's too precious to share...

Then Friday saw us back at the Royal Shrewsbury for her ERCP.

I picked her up again after the sedative had worn off, around mid-afternoon. All had gone swimmingly, old stent removed, new one installed and not a gall stone to be seen.

So that's done for another 6 months.

On Saturday morning the hire car went back, then I fired up the donk and we turned around to head off back towards Frankton, avoiding the canoes and paddle-boards milling around the winding hole.

Canal warehouse at Heath Houses.

This would have been used to store loads in transit, maybe for onward carriage by road. Just around the corner is Rednall Basin, now silted up and with the access swing bridge fixed closed, but once a transhipment point between canal and railway.

Good but tight mooring at the entrance to the basin.

From here to Graham Palmer Lock considerable effort and expense went into getting the canal navigable again. In 1936 the stone aqueduct carrying the canal over the River Perry failed, leading to the canal being abandoned. The subsequent dereliction required a huge amount of effort, both physically and politically, to correct. The physical was solved by building Graham Palmer Lock to lower the water levels and using wire gabions to reinforce the banks, the political by agreeing to limit the number and speed of boats using the navigation to protect the fauna and flora that had colonised the disused waterway.

Rock filled gabions keep the water in...

We went up the foot-deep Graham Palmer Lock, around the corner and reversed into the short arm that was once the start of the Weston Branch, intended to join the Severn at Shrewsbury but ultimately only getting as far as Weston Lullingfields. The Branch closed in 1919, following another breach.

Moored on the Weston Arm.

Although the building housing the services here looks decidedly ramshackle, the actual facilities are some of the best around! Clean, well maintained and even a suggestion board for comments, all of which were positive.

We had yesterday off, I had several logs to slice up and a few other odds and ends to sort out, then in the afternoon we pushed across the channel to fill with water and dispose of rubbish and recycling, before heading off around the corner to moor for the night below Frankton Locks. 

At nine this morning the lockie was unchaining the padlocks on the bottom lock (supervised passage, pre-booked only,) and we were able to go straight up.

Back out onto the Llangollen.

We turned right towards Ellesmere and moored near Tetchill. It's been a bit of a change today after several warm sunny days. Overcast and even a drop of rain, but we're back to sunshine again tomorrow.

Locks 5, miles 6¼