On Tuesday morning we
cycled down to see how the works were progressing on lock 30. Buddy was in one of his stick moods where he
likes to run with a stick in his mouth.
We haven’t worked out what makes him do it one day, and then shows no
interest whatsoever on another day.
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Buddy looking perplexed as
I stopped him carrying his stick
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This area is very popular
with walkers as there is a good circular walk that takes in both the Stratford and
Grand Union canals with a couple of good country pubs on the way. As you would expect the walkers are
generally older people during the week and they can look a bit worried when
they see a dog racing along carrying a stick that is wider than the
towpath. The stick he wanted to carry
yesterday was one of the longer ones so I had to stop him carrying it in case
he caused an accident.
We have had a lot of
comments about the wedding we didn’t see at the weekend, so Karen suggested
looking it up on the web to find out more.
So far it looks like nothing has been posted – maybe after the weekend
it will be in the pages of a local paper so we’ll look again then.
Coltsfoot flowers are now
appearing along the canalside. These are
members of the daisy family and not the dandelion family which they appear to
look like. I hadn’t realised that the
leaves don’t appear until after the flowers have set their seeds and died away
in the summer.
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Coltsfoot flowers
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When we arrived at the
lock we found that the stank was still in place in front of the top gates. This was because some repointing had been
done to the lock lining and hadn’t set yet.
This is one of the locks where heritage rules stipulate that the mortar
has to be lime-based rather than modern cement.
The men were erecting a
hoist over the bottom gate. They weren’t
going to remove the gate but needed to lift it slightly to take the weight
whilst repair works were carried out.
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Hoist being erected over
the bottom gate
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The gate anchor had come
loose and therefore the gate wasn’t sealing properly meaning it was leaking
water badly. There are different sorts
of anchors in use over the system; the guys here call this type ‘pigs ears’. You can see in the picture below how they
have slipped thus anchoring the gate less tightly.
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Slipped pigs ears
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This is how they should
look when seated properly
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The anchors become loose
through the gates constantly being hit by boats. It’s not surprising as some people misjudge
the length of their boat when going into a lock and you hear some pretty heavy
thuds sometimes.
The workmen say they are
on target to get the lock reopened by or over the coming weekend so not long to
wait now before we can get on the move again.
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