Tuesday was meant to be a
good day and it was, in that Mum came home from hospital and was keen to be
totally independent. The trouble was,
when she was being brought home, my dad got caught up on a couple of his
zimmers and fell over. Of course, he was
unable to get up on his own and called the emergency people via a call button
he has round his neck that is linked to the phone line. He was taken into hospital as Mum was being
brought home, so they passed like ships in the night so to speak.
It transpired that he has
a chest infection that has made him very weak.
It was amazing that on Monday we took him to see Mum in hospital and he walked
using his zimmer; by the next day he was unable to move unaided. Anyway, he is in the best place and when we
left on Friday he had been signed off medically and was waiting to get onto the
rehabilitation ward where they will hopefully build up his strength so he can
go home.
The visit to Yorkshire
this week was a bit different as Karen came up with me and worked from the
B&B.
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Karen’s view from her office
this week
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It was really nice having
Karen stay during the week and we made sure she took at least one break a day
to have a walk. She was also able to
help me do things for my mum and go and visit Dad in hospital. When walking along the canal on Wednesday we
saw our friend Nicola’s boat but she wasn’t on board – she was probably
visiting her dad as her family are in the same position as us.
We did bump into her
another day when she was driving off to see her dad, she stopped for a chat for
a while and also gave us the news that the White Swan, one of the village pubs,
had closed again. It’s a popular place
for drinkers, especially single boat people 😉
It was my birthday on
Thursday so we went to the Mason’s Arms for drinks and then had our first ever visit
to the Bollywood Cottage. This is an
Indian restaurant in the village that seems to be quite famous in the
north. The clientele were nearly all
older than us so it was empty by 8.30 but must have been packed at 6. Some of the WI were in having their monthly
curry and they recognised us and wanted an update on my parents.
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Chatting to the WI ladies
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All the travelling up and
down the M6 seems to have made me tired – this was me in Karen’s office on
Friday morning trying to do some puzzles before going round to see Mum.
Having some spare time
during the week I set about replacing our boat broadband SIM. When we took out the contract we did it through
our business account and so were ripped off in terms of charging. We have been paying £36 a month for 30 gig;
the service has been good through Three but it really was expensive. We wanted to stay with Three as they seem to
provide the best coverage on the waterways but, by getting a personal account,
we now have 100 gig for £18 a month – a big difference!
We came home on Friday
afternoon only to be caught in the M6 traffic jam around Manchester where an
offal lorry had shed its load. We were
stuck for nearly two hours so were even more glad to be home. Our neighbours were still moored with us but the
leaves on our oak tree had really changed colour:
On Saturday morning, Karen
went into Leam to pick up some things she had ordered and Buddy and I went up ‘our’
lock to get water and start up the Lapworth flight. I say ‘our’ lock as we seem to be moored
below it a lot and often go up to get water and come back down again so it must
be one of the locks that we have travelled through the most.
Buddy's wound still hasn’t
healed completely so he still wears his lampshade. We took it off him a bit soon as he
immediately licked his scab off and we have had to start again.
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Buddy in ‘our’ lock - he always sits in the middle in a lock but on either side when cruising - quite sensible really
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Our nasturtiums are
refusing to die off – Karen is desperate for them to finish so she can re-pot the pots with the remaining bulbs and
winter plants.
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One of the nasturtiums
that wont die (in ‘our’ lock with the water point just ahead)
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After taking on water, we
headed across the basin to get the next lock set. There were a few gongoozlers out already even
though it was fairly early in the morning.
I got chatting to one couple whilst waiting for the lock to empty. It transpired that they own a boat and moor
it down at Calcutt -they were really envious that we lived full time on the
boat as they only get to take theirs out a few times a year.
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Waiting for the second
lock to empty – ‘our’ lock is round the corner at the far end of the basin –
the Lapworth link runs off to the left, in front of the barrel roofed cottage, to join the Grand Union canal
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There is a small marina on
the right before the next lock and most of the boats are residential so we have
got to know quite a few of the people who live there. Many of the locks on the flight will be
closed for maintenance in a week or too which effectively puts the flight out
of action until Christmas. So we won’t
be back to Lapworth for a couple of months – which is practically New Year –
where did 2017 go?
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Some of the residential
boats on the right as we go into the third lock of the day
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There are 26 locks on the
Lapworth flight and we have been moored just below the sixth lock from the bottom. We planned to go up seven locks and moor by
the Boot where Karen would park the car and come and meet us when she got back
from Leam.
The Stratford canal is in
two parts; the South Stratford runs from Lapworth Junction down to Stratford upon Avon;
the North Stratford runs from Lapworth Junction up to Kings Norton near Edgbaston. Although all the locks are narrow locks,
those on the North Stratford have double bottom gates and as it’s been a while
since we encountered this set up I had to think about how to open and close
them efficiently.
When one of the pair is
open it is possible to step across the gap to the other gate to open that
too. This saves walking all round the
lock to get back to the boat. Of course you have to open the furthest
gate first otherwise you end up having to walk round the lock anyway if
you see what I mean.
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I needed to be on the left
so opened the right hand gate first then stepped across the gap to open the
left hand gate
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Buddy seems unperturbed by
his lampshade but it does make some other dogs bark at him as they don’t understand. Here he is waiting for me to come into one of
the locks:
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Pretty pound between locks
15 & 16 on the Lapworth flight
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Waiting for a restored
working boat to leave one of the locks – handy for me as it meant the lock was
set for me
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There was a lock keeper
working on the flight but she was helping the working boat down. There were two guys on the boat so it struck
me as odd that she worked with them rather than offering to help me as I was
single handed. As it was, I was quite relieved
as I was only doing seven locks and I prefer the solitude apart from the fact
that extra concentration is required if someone other than Karen is helping out
(or willing friends like Mike and Lesley 😉).
Karen met us when we had
two locks left but as we hadn’t had lunch yet she went inside to make pumpkin
soup. Karen cannot resist buying a
pumpkin at Halloween, although last year, Mike and Lesley bought us one when
they visited us at Braunston.
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Pumpkin ready for display
on the roof
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Coming up the last lock of
the day
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We moored up outside The
Boot pub for the rest of the day and went for a circular walk in the late
afternoon, taking in Lapworth church which Karen hadn’t seen before.
We will probably go up the
next nine locks on Sunday and moor in a pound that gets plenty of light. We will probably stay there until next
weekend as Chris and Sue are visiting on Friday and car parking is fairly easy in that pound.
We have to finish the
flight next weekend and get through Shirley lift bridge as it closes for maintenance
for five weeks, otherwise we won’t be
able to get to Birmingham for the weekend of 17th November.
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Sunday morning outside The
Boot – the next lock can be seen under the pipe
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By the way, we are in
countdown mode now - 19 weeks left until Karen finishes work and we can be off
on our travels around the North again 😊
